All in the Family

All in the Family

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A 1970s time capsule in New Irving Park

By Cassie Bustamante

Photographs by Amy Freeman

“It was like a little time capsule,” Alejandra Thompson de Jordan says, recalling the first moment she and husband Andrew Jordan stepped foot in what would become their home. While many big-city dwellers looking to relocate to a quieter, idyllic location would see a mountain of renovation work to be done, these former Manhattanites saw a home with history worth saving.

Nestled on a rare 2-acre lot in New Irving Park, the “Worsham House” amenities and decor are reminiscent of what you might see on television’s Mad Men. Tan grasscloth wallpaper, an intercom system, a tangerine-colored, midcentury freestanding fireplace, and even a built-in-the-wall turntable are just a few of the intact relics that remain 50 years after its construction. Originally drafted by architect G. Donald Dudley, the 1972 home was designed to be, according to its original plans, “a residence for Mr. & Mrs. Jack W. Worsham.” And it stayed as such until Jack, founder of several companies including Southern Plastics Engineering Company, passed away in 2019 at the age of 93, 11 years after his wife, Mary.

“It was his dream house,” says the Worshams’ only son, Len, who recalls moving to the house at the age of 15 after growing up in “a little tiny house” on Newlyn. Not only was it his father’s dream, but it was his design. “Don [Dudley] drew up the actual architectural plans, but it was dad’s brainchild.”

With four children (Len and his three sisters), Jack seemingly designed the home with entertaining in mind. “Mom was a great cook,” Len recalls of his mother, who was known for her coconut custard pie.

When Jack and Mary first bought the property and were in the process of building, one small building existed: “the little house” as the Worsham kids came to call it, as compared to the one Jack designed, “the big house.” Before their new, approximately 6,000-square-foot house was complete, Jack and Mary often entertained on the property. It “was a party house before the main house was ever built,” says Len.

The Worshams even started what became a yearly tradition until about the time of Jack’s death — a neighborhood block party. And while they were often surrounded by friends and family, what Len and his siblings remember as one of their fondest memories of their parents is, in contrast, a quiet moment from their twilight years. “As they got older, in their 70s and 80s, they just loved to sit on that back patio and listen to the birds chirping and watching the sunset.”

With Jack and Mary now gone, the vacant home, listed by the Worshams’ children, sought a new family, one that would breathe life into it as the Worshams once had. While Alejandra and Andrew were “not even flirting with the idea of living in Greensboro,” her older brother, Clifford, co-founder and president of Thompson (formerly Thompson Traders, a local company that creates artisan-made metal sinks and fixtures imported from Mexico), had another notion. He would often send her house listing links. His hope? That she’d leave her role as Chanel’s director of marketing for a job as vice president of sales and marketing with his company. And Andrew is no stranger to moving. Born in Colombia, he relocated often — living in Argentina, Atlanta, Brazil and even Hong Kong — throughout his young life due to his father’s executive position at Coca-Cola. Plus, on sabbatical from his role as Compass real estate’s general manager of agent growth, he could live anywhere.

The seed was planted. Then in March 2020, the world shut down due to COVID, and Andrew, a very pregnant Alejandra and their then 2-year-old daughter, Ale, left their 1,300-square-foot Manhattan apartment temporarily to stay with her parents at the Sedgefield house she grew up in. Clifford, meanwhile, stayed hot on his pursuit, but, Alejandra says, their home was in New York.

When Clifford sent her the listing for the Worsham house, however, she and Andrew contacted the Zillow agent and booked a tour — “for fun.”

The property itself wowed them. “After living in a box in Manhattan, we were like, what is this? Farmland?” Alejandra says with a laugh. Indeed, according to Len, the property was originally named “Worsham Farm” and the family once had ponies, cows and chickens.

In New York, Alejandra and Andrew were thrilled to have a single tree they lovingly named Greta outside of a window of their fourth floor apartment. “Here we can’t even count the trees, let alone name them!”

For Alejandra, it was love at first sight. Meanwhile Andrew loved the main floor, but felt the basement level was strange. “Maybe if the downstairs didn’t exist, it would be great,” Alejandra recalls him saying. Her answer? A playful “Just don’t go down there, problem solved!”

Even though Alejandra was head-over-heels and Andrew could picture himself living in this house, the couple were not ready to commit to the idea of leaving New York. But after the baby of the family, Rafa, was born in September 2020, they realized they were here to stay, close to her family and closer to his parents, who are retired and living in Atlanta.

In February 2021, just after leaving Chanel, Alejandra accepted the position with the family business and, at the same time, co-founded ESTAS, a beauty brand that focuses on scar care, something Alejandra knows about after undergoing C-sections. Everything was set in motion, but the Worsham house was under contract by then.

They put in an offer on another house — “a fine house for now.” And then, fate intervened. While visiting Andrew’s parents, they got word that the Worsham house was back on the market. “The stars aligned,” quips Alejandra. With the Greensboro real estate market on fire at the time, she and Andrew jumped.

Since moving in, the couple have worked to make the home theirs while preserving its heritage, even purchasing some of the existing furnishings with the sale of the house. Their New York belongings could fit in the living and dining room of their new home, Alejandra notes, so having some furniture in place was helpful.

“I love things with history. That means so much more to me than a brand-new, polished, pretty, perfect thing,” says Alejandra. “I want the story, so I think that’s probably part of the reason I fell in love with this house.”

While maintaining original characteristics was crucial, Alejandra and Andrew did make a couple of major changes. The carpeting on the main level was all pulled up and replaced with hardwood floors because of Alejandra’s allergies. Even the entry’s spiral staircase was carpeted, hiding usable wood underneath. “My dad, my glorious dad,” says Alejandra, “he sanded and stained all this wood and put it back on the stairs for us.”

Now, the staircase is a thing of beauty sitting just in front of a large entry wall that features original grasscloth paper. The rest of the entrance has been decorated to complement the home’s existing details. A cowhide rug rests on a warm toned parquet floor. Against an earthy gray stone wall, a gold-and-black mirror hangs above a sleek cabinet in the same colors. Large brass figures of the “Three Wise Monkeys,” a gift from Alejandra’s mom, represent “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” And the statement lighting? A gold-and-cut-glass sputnik chandelier the couple brought from their entry in New York.

The other staircase sits at the end of a long hallway and was also carpeted and walled in, with a single door at the top, making it feel like the entrance to a dark cave — “like the scary basements from Stranger Things.” To make it feel more welcoming, they removed the carpeting and opened up the wall, adding a railing and a new-to-them modern black-and-gold chandelier purchased at Red Collection.

In fact, walking around the house, Alejandra points out several pieces that are vintage and second hand, many purchased and many given to her. In the dining room, a pair of glass-doored cabinets house vintage tableware passed down from close family friend “Aunt” Sharon: vintage Lenox dishes that had been Sharon’s mother’s treasured wedding china and Gorham silver.

In the living room, two petite white sofas brought from New York face each other. A third sofa — a long, striped piece with 1970s-style lines — creates a conversation area centered on a stone fireplace. And, as it turns out, that one was scored for about $100 from Red Collection’s sale room. Alejandra had it reupholstered with inexpensive deadstock fabric. It’s flanked by two Asian style mother-of-pearl inlaid stools, also from Red Collection. And it all works seamlessly together, each couch featuring a mix of black, white and metallic-toned pillows.

Alejandra credits her “designers, with air quotes” — her mother, sister Samantha and Clifford’s wife, sister-in-law Martha — for helping her create a cohesive look that integrates the home’s inherent features. Martha, in particular, helped put together the living room.

While Alejandra sits on the board of GreenHill Center for NC Art and has quite the eye, she notes that “beauty is subjective.” And when it comes to art, she feels the same as she does about houses and furnishings. Echoing her earlier words, she says, “For me, it’s always the story.” She prefers to know the artist personally or to have learned something about the artist that pulls her into their narrative. Much of the art around the house, such as a vibrant Linda Spitsen painting and pieces created by sculptor Marta Tornero (whom she calls “Tia” Marta) has been made by family and friends.

In the family room, Alejandra points out a large gold-leaf and painted plywood piece over the fireplace. It was a gift from Martha, who, as it turns out, is an artist. Although she created it with their New York apartment in mind, it appears as if it were made for this home.

The wall of bookcases features several smaller pieces of art, including another Martha original. Looking at a large, colorful framed painting, she says it was a wedding gift from her “Aunt” Ingrid Cassuto, an “art aficionado” who once sat on the Weatherspoon’s board. The wall also features special pieces that Martha has brought back from Mexico, a nod to Alejandra’s heritage. Her mother, Alejandra Thompson, founder and creative director of Thompson, was born and raised in Mexico, just 10 miles from where the Purépecha artisans work in copper and metals.

The bookcase cabinets have a unique feature that is likely thanks to Jack Worsham’s trade. “These are plastic doors and they look like wood,” says Alejandra, pointing out the same is true for the home’s bathroom cabinets. Alejandra wonders, did they come from Southern Plastics?

“We’re not sure,” says Len, adding, “It was within his capabilities with the equipment he had.”

With its natural grasscloth paper, warm woods and collection of textiles in oranges and reds, the room has an organic, collected and global feel. Alejandra says she was never before keen on this color scheme. Their old apartment featured a lot of white and gold. But, she says, “This house has made me an orange lover.”

And she’s not the only one. In the main bedroom’s closet, Andrew’s traditional button-down shirts hang side by side, with a small section dedicated to funkier vintage patterns and bolder colors inspired by the home. Prior to living here, Andrew “would never wear anything that wasn’t navy blue.” But now? “The house has changed him,” says his wife. And while it took him a little longer to get there, he’s absolutely fallen in love with the house, too.

This house, it turns out, has become a labor of love for Andrew. “It’s his third child,” Alejandra says. Did he have DIY skills before moving here? Nope, but he’s watched a lot of YouTube videos. Plus, she adds, “He’s smart, likes learning and figuring things out.” In fact, the barn that once housed the Worshams’ ponies has become Andrew’s mancave. “It’s covered in tools. It’s his happy place!”

Downstairs in the finished basement the theme of entertainment flows. “If these walls could talk,” muses Alejandra. She imagines the Worshams were “the ultimate host and hostess.” And these basement walls do tell a story.

On one side, there’s a huge recreational space, complete with green turf, putting holes for practice and, tucked into the corner, a tiki bar. While the golf theme was original, Len notes that the tiki bar was added much later, in the early 2000s, he believes.

At the same time, a very large — Alejandra approximates 40-foot — hand-painted tropical ocean-scape mural was added to the wall opposite the tiki bar. And the artist, Greensboro’s Barbara Richardson, added clever, personal details. A sailboat at sea features the name “Worsham,” and on the far end a painted tiki bar mimics their own.

The other end of the basement steps back in time and welcomes guests to a 1970s lounge area. “The Butterfly Bar,” as Alejandra calls it. Why? Because of its original black, orange and gold butterfly wallpaper. Most of the furniture came with the house — the orange, black and white swivel bar stools, the lounge-style curved gray-and-black sofa, piped in, wait for it, orange. There’s one exception, though: In front of the sofa sits a gold-and-black glass circular coffee table made by Thompson, of course. “Everyone in my family has one.”

On the wall behind the, you guessed it, 1970s burnt-orange formica bar, there’s a handy feature not seen so much these days: A dumbwaiter leads up to the kitchen, where original wooden cabinets create an “L” around a tiered original island. A table-height counter was once surrounded by barrel chairs, but Alejandra prefers to keep it open and use it for serving.

Instead, Alejandra’s added a hand-me-down blonde midcentury set, passed down from her father’s parents. “It was in complete disrepair.” She adds proudly, “My husband brought it back to life.”

For now, most projects are maintenance since the couple admires the designs of the home’s original owners. However, Alejandra has a project in mind to bring in a little of her own family’s history. Standing inside the guest bathroom, she says, “Let me show you what my dream for the bathroom is.” She holds up a unique brass sink, featuring a metalwork lizard, made by Thompson. “I want to change this countertop and I want to put this sink in there.”

There’s one project the couple happily passed along to Andrew’s parents. That “little house,” as the Worsham kids called it? It needed a lot of love to once again be a usable space. “You know the big car bows?” asks Alejandra. She put one of those on the front door and they gifted it to Andrew’s parents, who are thrilled to have a space of their own when they visit their now-closer family.

“When Andrew was little,” says Alejandra, “he told his dad that when he grew up, he was going to build a treehouse next to his house and that his dad could live there as an old man.” Now, it looks like that childhood dream has come true. With carte blanche, Andrew’s parents turned the guest house into a more modern and cozy place where they can stay for days at a time without ever feeling like they’ve overstayed.

And, as an added bonus, Alejandra says, she and Andrew will sometimes get a sitter and go hang out in the guest house to relax with an “at-home” date night. While the “big house” was made to host loads of people, it’s nice to have a literal backyard getaway that offers serenity, with a nice buffer of trees between the two.

Just as the Worshams once did, Alejandra and Andrew entertain often. Her parents, her siblings and their children frequently come over. “Our house is the family country club,” quips Alejandra. And in the summers, the backyard is full of life, its pool full of kids. “It’s the best — my family are my favorite people,” says Alejandra.

A year-and-a-half after purchasing the home, Alejandra and Andrew invited the Worsham children over for a celebration that included Alejandra’s extended family as well. Len recalls the joy he and his siblings felt in seeing a new family in the home their parents dreamed up and built. “We saw that they loved the architecture, were interested in the history of it, and they had small children. And her brother lived around the corner,” he says. “We just knew.”

Knew what? That they were the right family for their parents’ house. “Jackie, she had tears in her eyes,” recalls Alejandra, her own eyes watering, “and she said, ‘I think Papa picked you guys for this house.’”

“That’s possible,” Len pauses and laughs. “Yeah, that’s really possible.”  OH

A Few Questions for Greensboro’s Mr. Baseball

A Few Questions for Greensboro’s Mr. Baseball

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Donald Moore’s Extra Inning

by Jim Dodson

After 22 years at the helm of the Greensboro Grasshoppers as both president and general manager, Donald Moore opens the 2024 season in his new position as President Emeritus of the organization he helped create. A longtime figure in the Gate City’s sporting scene, Moore was a three-sport star at Page High in the early 1970s, playing baseball, football and basketball. He was lucky to play under two North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame coaches — Marion Kirby and Mac Morris. In the 1990s, Moore was involved with the Greensboro Sports Council and chaired the city’s high school basketball tournament for many years. Then along came the Hoppers. With a new season on the horizon, we caught up with Greensboro’s genial son — the man with a plan to bring baseball back to the Gate City — and asked him to reflect on his own journey around the bases.

Since the ballpark opened in the spring of 2005, how many fans have passed through your turnstiles?

It’s rather amazing. Somewhere close to 7 million fans have visited the ballpark. That’s a high compliment to the baseball fans of Triad.

Tell us how it all started.

It all started with a phone call from Jim Melvin in July of 2001. I was working in real estate development at Uwharrie Point and commuting 53 miles a day, six days a week. The development was winding down and I was trying to think of what I would do next. That’s when Jim called out of the blue wondering if I had interest in joining the baseball team as part of an investment team that bought the team and wanted to build a new stadium downtown.

What were the early days of the organization like?

To begin with, we were based over at Memorial Stadium in an office that was like a dungeon that had no windows. It was a pretty grim place. We had three seasons over there. The team nickname at that time was the Bats, and they had God-awful colors — black and purple. So, we changed the name to the Grasshoppers in the fall of 2004 to open the new stadium in the spring of 2005 with our affiliate, the Marlins. I’d always thought the colors of the University of Miami were so cool — green and orange. The Marlins came up and played an exhibition game.

Do you remember opening day?

Sure do. We opened with an exhibition game. Every seat in the stadium was taken. Our attendance was almost 8,000. It was a beautiful, sunny and cool spring day. The fans were ecstatic and couldn’t believe what an incredible ballpark they had. The credit goes to Jim Melvin, Len White, Cooper Brantley and the rest of the private investment group. Things really took off from there and have never stopped.

It’s been pointed out that the stadium was a key component in the redevelopment of downtown Greensboro. How do you feel about that?

I’m proud of the economic impact that the ballpark has had on downtown and in Greensboro at large. In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, downtown was a ghost town. I think the stadium was just part of that rebirth. So much has changed since then. We have a new $100-million plus development rumored to be coming. I’m glad we could be part of that.

Best memories?

Oh, gosh. So many in 22 years. A lot of games and a lot of weekends. But it’s been fantastic. We won the league championship in 2011, a storybook finish. We won 17 of the last 20 games and got into the playoffs on the very last day of the season. Then we went to Savannah and won the title down there. The first championship since 1982. We also held the ACC tournament here three times — 2010, 2012 and 2014 — and packed the house. In 2012, we hosted the State-Carolina game here on a Saturday night and set a record for the state of North Carolina collegiate baseball — more than 10,000 fans. The Marlins also came two more times in 2010 and 2015. Those were all special days.

What sort of things did you learn along the way?

I learned early that we are in the entertainment business. Baseball at this level is family entertainment. Probably half our fan base has a family pet. I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if we could get a dog into the mix?


Then along came Miss Babe Ruth.

That’s right. She was born November 5, 2005. I found her at a local breeder, and we had a press conference to say she was going off to spring training in March of ’06. She made her debut carrying baseballs in a bucket out to the umpires in August that year. The fans went crazy. She loved it, too. We retired her in 2015 after 649 straight games. I wrote a letter to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to offer them Babe’s original ball bucket. They were delighted to accept it. Today, it’s the only nonhuman artifact in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

How about the other four-legged baseball fans?

We had Master Yogi Berra, our only male in five dogs. He was a real cutup, always carrying a ball in his mouth. I would shoot a ball into the outfield, and he’d run and get it, and then race back through the tunnel. One time in ’09, Yogi stopped and left his business on the field. The fans loved it but the umpire tossed him out of the game. I wrote and sent out a press release pointing out that Yogi was the first dog ever to be ejected from a professional baseball game. It went crazy. Within a week, Yogi was in Sports Illustrated, and he and I were on Fox & Friends.

Lou Lou Gehrig joined us in 2012 and worked up until her passing in 2020. She became our office dog. She was followed by Little Jackie Robinson, who never got into the routine and became our office administrator. Willie May Mays joined us in 2022. Willie’s great, loves the whole thing, and the fans love her.

So how do you feel stepping back from all of that?

It’s bittersweet. I tell you, though, if you surround yourself with good people it makes it easier to go. I hired everyone on our staff and know what talented and committed people they are. Sure, I’ll miss it. But I’ll be around, checking in from time to time. It’s a good feeling to know you’ve made a difference in someone’s life. I run into fans all the time who have great memories of this place. Not long ago a father came up to tell me that I gave his son a baseball 15 years ago. It’s a small thing like that that you remember most.

So how are the Hoppers looking in 2024?

You never quite know. But it’ll be lots of fun. So, come on out.  OH

Kicking It at the Curb

Kicking It at the Curb

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Kicking It at the Curb

For 150 years, Greensboro’s farmers market has cultivated community

By Ross Howell Jr. 

Photographs by Lynn Donovan

The best description of what the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market feels like was written back in 1994 by Dorothy Mason — now retired professor emerita of geography at N.C. A&T State University. She was a loyal market customer then and still is today.

“On any Saturday morning in July, the old National Guard Armory building is the busiest place in the city,” Mason writes.

“Before 6 a.m., shoppers have gathered outside the entrances, while vendors unload their trucks and carry in boxes of green beans, tomatoes, corn, cut flowers and potted plants, baked goods, jams and soap,” she continues.

“By 7 a.m., the scene can best be described as ‘a rump-bumping crowd.’ There is a festival atmosphere as shoppers select produce and vendors weigh it, talking together like old friends. Shoppers block the aisles, their bodies enlarged by bags and flower containers, as they stop to chat with friends.”

But, she notes, the market is about more than just the fresh veggies and homemade cakes. Mason adds. “It is a social event which brings people of a range of socioeconomic backgrounds together.”

Prof. Mason’s description was written for a study she presented at an annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. Her interests were the market community, the human relationships it nurtures and the ways the market helps preserve regional cooking traditions.

Ever the academic, Mason brought the receipts to support her observations. She had administered questionnaires to 384 shoppers and conducted interviews with the market manager and many vendors and shoppers. She found that 74 percent of those polled had shopped the market for five years or more and 32 percent for 20 years or more. She discovered that more than 20 of her subjects had been coming to the market for 40 years, and three had been coming for an astounding 50 years.

In interviews, Mason had subjects who recalled being brought to the market as children, and one who identified herself as a fourth-generation shopper.

Mason also asked people open-ended questions about why they came to the market. Respondents commented on the freshness and quality of produce, supporting local farmers, nostalgia for a simpler time and — interestingly — the crowd.

“Crowd! This is the greatest reason,” wrote one respondent.

I like to peek into the nooks and crannies of history. And history helps us understand that the farmers curb market is much more like a tree than a building, more like a marriage than a location. It’s a living community within our city, benefiting us all.

To give you an idea of how long ago the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market was founded — when it first opened in 1874, our O. Henry magazine namesake, William Sydney Porter, was still enrolled in his aunt Evelina Henry Porter’s elementary school.

The most comprehensive account of the origins of the market is found — strangely enough — in a two-segment radio address delivered in 1951 by the Honorable Robert Haines Frazier, mayor, to WCOG listeners.

Mayor Frazier’s Greensboro roots ran deep. His father, Cyrus Pickett Frazier, had been a professor and long-time trustee at Guilford College, a superintendent of Greensboro city schools, and a successful real estate entrepreneur.

Mayor Frazier was born in Greensboro, raised in a Quaker household and became a Greensboro attorney. When he was elected to office, he succeeded textile industrialist and philanthropist Benjamin Cone, an individual well-known for his commitment to the local community.

The mayor notes that on May 13, 1874, a committee was appointed to look into establishing a market. Subsequently, the city purchased a lot and constructed a building accommodating 20 vendor stalls on the east side of the business district.

Frazier adds in painstaking detail how the stalls were rented at auction, the financial terms of stall rental, the requirements for stall cleanliness and maintenance, the market official who decided where vendors would hitch their horses and wagons, and the city ordinance written to prohibit random street vending of the “fresh meats, fresh fish, butter, eggs, poultry, vegetables, melons and fruits” to be sold during the hours the market was open.

In 1875, a special market house for fish mongers was added. A review of revenues revealed that the costs to create the market had been a good investment for the city. But the market’s success was blemished by its very popularity.

According to the mayor, “loungers” and “gossip” were problems.

“So great did the nuisance become that many of our ladies refused to go there,” Mayor Frazier told his radio audience. But the market clerk was given police powers and the city passed an ordinance “against idleness and loafing,” granting the mayor’s office with the power of enforcement. The problems soon diminished.

Then, misfortune struck on the morning of May 27, 1888, when the market house and all records, maps and furniture were destroyed by fire.

A year later, the decision was made to rebuild, using the walls that had survived the fire, and plans were made to put water in the market house and a drinking fountain in the public square.

By December 1901, the board of aldermen detailed new rules and regulations for the market, which operated until 1906 and then closed, evidently due to management problems.

When the farmers market reopened in 1922, it was in the open air on Commerce Place. Vendors parked their trucks or wagons on the curb selling items from the tailgates or running boards of their vehicles.

The location changed a couple of times in subsequent years, but, according to Mayor Frazier, the market returned to its Commerce Place location in the 1930s.

And, as happened after its original opening in 1874, the market’s success created problems. Business grew and spread into an alley extending all the way from Commerce Place to Eugene Street. With no central market building, the growing congestion and confusion were unmanageable.

Remarkably, in some of the most challenging days of World War II, the Greensboro Council of Garden Clubs “expressed the need for an adequately housed farm produce market,” the mayor tells us.

At a city council meeting in February 1943, a group of citizens presented a petition signed by 12,000 individuals “asking for the establishment of the market in the old Tobacco Market Warehouse on Commerce Place.” A commission was charged with studying the issue, and in January 1944, the city authorized “$65,000 in Market House bonds” to raise funds for “remodeling and equipping” a building.

On its opening day, June 24, 1944 — just days after the D-Day invasion — the new farmers curb market saw a crowd of 2,000, possibly the largest to gather at a single market up until that point. Greensboro’s mayor at the time “dedicated the market to the community as an influence for closer urban-rural relationship and greater production and consumption of native products.”

A look at the newspaper clippings on file in the Greensboro History Museum reveals even more about the synergy between the market community and the city community.

An article from the Greensboro Record, Feb. 7, 1962, carries the headline, “City Takes Over Armory Monday for Market Use.” In 1963, the curb market was moved from its Commerce Place location to its current one — the old National Guard Armory building on Yanceyville Street.

In the history museum’s files I also came across an October 1995 article in a newspaper section designated, “Irving Park Magazine.” The piece was written by Betty Taylor, who gives an overview of the history of the market and includes a photograph of “Margaret Rumley and Shirley Rumley Broom.”

Many curb market customers — myself included — remember the late Margaret Rumley simply as “Mom.” She sat on a kitchen stool at her stall greeting generations of flower buyers alongside her daughter, Shirley, who was first photographed by a newspaperman at the market selling a pie to a customer when she was 9 years old.

With all that history and the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market’s 2024 sesquicentennial celebration in mind, I set out on a cold Saturday morning in February for Yanceyville Street.

Theresa Mattiello, the new market manager, was just months into her new position when the market sesquicentennial launched. She’s not new to the market, though. For four years she worked a stall with Tea Hugger, selling a variety of hand-blended teas. Trained in graphic design, Mattiello also did social media work for the previous farmers market manager.

Mattiello lives in Glenwood and practices micro farming, growing plants in raised beds and utilizing vertical space to increase production. She’s representative of a new generation of urban gardeners who encourage others to think of their grass lawns as potential “yardens,” where fresh food can be grown within more traditional landscaping.

Standing alongside Mattiello in the “Info Hub” stall are two market employees. Shane Henderson is a student at N.C. A&T State, majoring in civil engineering and public health, and Abigail Miller-Warren is taking classes in sustainability at GTCC.

All three are young and enthusiastic — and their smiles are infectious. They’re handing out flyers announcing sesquicentennial events. This month, look for the annual plant sale and an Earth Day Fair.

Special events will continue monthly throughout 2024.

“It’s very exciting,” Mattiello tells me. “We managed to stay open during COVID with our mobile market, kind of a drive-through — but we did lose some vendors.”

Mattiello networks with current vendors, customers and the greater community to recruit new vendors.

“We’re always reaching out to farmers younger than 40 and farmers who grow more exotic vegetables to broaden the selection of produce available,” Mattiello says.

After accepting a flyer from Miller-Warren, I decide to browse.

First, I meet Garland McCollum, who’s at a stall right by the market entrance. His big hands are wrapped around a pair of long-handled pruning shears that he’s sharpening.

McCollum is there with Massey Creeks Farm, an operation specializing in sustainably-grown, grass-fed meats and eggs. He tells me the Rockingham County farm has been in his family since 1749.

“All I ever wanted to do was farm,” McCollum says.

After graduating from N.C. State with a degree in animal husbandry, he returned to the farm, where tobacco was still the main crop. But he wanted to raise livestock. Over time, he moved into growing hogs under contract and eventually discovered the possibility of selling his pork and lamb direct to consumers at the farmers market.

“I started sharpening implements here to pass the time when business was slow,” McCollum says. “Then I found out people really needed the service.”

Next I move to the Chéngers stall, occupied by Jo Ann and Bob Smith, whose daughter, Trina Pratt, owns the business and is also an adjunct professor in kinesiology at N.C. A&T State.

Jo Ann tells me that Prof. Pratt’s business name honors her son, Ché, who was born when she was still in graduate school.

“When he was a baby, he would not eat baby food,” Jo Ann says. “So Trina started making applesauce for him at home.”

“Are these soups?” a customer asks.

“Yes,” Bob answers. “Asian vegetable, butternut squash, chickpeas and tomato bisque. Vegan, all-natural, no preservatives, no additives.”

The customer ponders a selection, and Jo Ann processes the purchase.

She tells me many customers are older.

“Our bodies go through changes,” Jo Ann says. “That’s the other idea behind the name of the business. Regardless of age or health, people can eat my daughter’s food.”

A chef now helps develop recipes and the business sells soups, smoothies, juices and baby foods.

Dr. Pratt’s foods must do the job. Her son, Ché, steps up to the stall, now a handsome young man a good 6 feet tall.

Near a corner of the market building I spy a stall with some beautiful cold-weather vegetables. Lukas Hoey of The Hoey Farm introduces himself. He’s a bearded, genial young man, a first-generation, urban farmer who began his career as a chef.

When health issues precluded him from continuing in the restaurant business, he started farming.

“My kids help, my wife helps; we’re a family farm, but I’m the one primarily doing it,” says Hoey, who’s been a vendor for two years. “I love it.”

He explains that he has a greenhouse located by the coliseum. After starting plants there, he moves them to High Point, where a friend has a half-acre of land that she allows him to farm.

In his stall, he points out Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, Swiss chard, curly kale and collards.

“We also do some micro greens, which are very healthy, like a super food,” he says. “We focus on things that grow really fast, things that are quick to harvest. Things that are a little niche.”

The market has proven to be a good pivot for Hoey. “I see familiar faces, customers from my restaurant days, but this is a much healthier setting for me. I’ve never looked back.”

Next, at a crafts stall, I’m eyeing elegant, hand-painted stones and wooden pieces, brightened with precise beads of color, and then, I’m gazing upon a face familiar from years ago when I worked at Replacements, Ltd. — where she still has her day job.

Viktoriya Saltzman.

A native Ukrainian, Saltzman is the owner of Dew Drop Rocks. She grew up in the town of Mariupol, on the sea of Azov, now famous for its ferocious resistance to Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

After a hug, she asks, “You see those eggs?” She points to them.

“Those two eggs, the wooden part, they came from Mariupol,” Saltzman says.

“My mom sent me from Ukraine,” she continues. “I receive the package like a week before the war.”

Saltzman admired their shape and painted them. “But I’m not going to sell them ever because they’re just part of my home. I keep them for someday . . . ” and her voice trails off.

She shows me selections of her work — jewelry boxes, ornaments, painted stone whimsies. She tells me the baby girl I remember from pictures is now a 17-year-old.

Next I stop by a stall with a man selling local honey. Turns out, he’s something of a market legend.

Bill Mullins is a 93-year-old retiree from the insurance business and the owner of Quaker Acre Apiaries. He’s been coming to the farmers market as a vendor for 55 years.

“Seems like when I started coming, we were outside at Commerce Place,” he chuckles.

Mullins tells me he got interested in bees as a boy in Alabama.

“My father was a general insurance agent, and he had a good friend in the mountains of Kentucky,” Mullins says. “He’d take me with him when he’d go up there to visit. And the friend kept honeybees.” Mullins recalls watching the honeybees while the men talked.

“And that’s what got me interested in bees.”

I ask Mullins how he feels about the farmers curb market after 55 years selling his honey here?

He muses for a moment.

“I’ve been here so long, nearly everybody here is a friend of mine,” he adds. “It’s just a very friendly place.”

Finally, I decide to join a short queue of customers waiting to purchase fresh shrimp and fish from George Smith of Smith Century Farm & NC Fresh Seafood in Gibsonville. Since no one’s behind me, we have a moment to chat.

“What Bill Mullins was telling you about is what we vendors call competitive camaraderie,” Smith says.

He tells me the 250-acre farm has been in his family since the late 1700s.

“I’ve got pencil drawings from the 1800s and a picture of the old home place around 1850 with everyone standing in front of the old log house dressed in their Sunday best,” Smith says.

His grandparents started coming to the market 91 years ago.

“I started coming in 1973,” Smith says. “I was 13 years old and came to help my grandmother. I got the bug and I’ve pretty much been here ever since.”

Another customer appears and I let Smith tend to business.

So I’ll close with the same advice that Mayor Frazier gave his WCOG radio listeners back in 1951.

“Today the Greensboro Curb Market, which has been termed the ‘largest producers’ curb market in the State,’ is a popular place for both our country and city folk,” the mayor said. “You’d be surprised how many shoppers are on hand at 6 o’clock on Saturday mornings.”

Early is best for top selection. And where else can you go in Greensboro to become part of a unique community that’s been around for 150 years?  OH

For more information on the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, go to www.gsofarmersmarket.org or search Facebook for the handle Greensboro Farmers Curb Market.

Fooled Ya Foods? Imposter-ble!

Fooled Ya Foods? Imposter-ble!

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As both serious foodies and suckers for cooking shows, the team at O.Henry is smitten with Kids Baking Championship, a Food Network competition that features youngsters whipping up confections in the kitchen. Our fav episodes? Hands down, the “Dessert Imposters” theme, which features sweet treats that resemble savory entrees. A hearty meal of meatloaf, catsup and mashed taters? Think again — it’s chocolate cake dressed with strawberry coulis and a dollop of buttercream. Inspired, we asked our own “In Good Taste” contributor, Jasmine Comer, to plate up some of her own deceptive dishes that’ll leave your taste buds pleasantly bewildered.

Savory Sundae

Hot temps are just around the corner here in North Carolina. Nothing cools you off like a scoop or two of chilled, hand-dipped — mashed potatoes? That’s right, this “ice cream sundae” is nothing more than tubers. To make, mash potatoes with milk and butter for an extra smooth and creamy finish. Stir in brown food coloring to give it a chocolatey appearance. Refrigerate before scooping. You can even experiment with other root veggies. Beets would give you the look of a berry sorbet. Top it off with chocolate sauce — oops, gravy — and what any sundae needs, a cherry (tomato) on top.  OH

Golden Nuggets

Every kid’s favorite meal or the Golden Girls round table discussion treat? Though these crisped-to-perfection nuggets appear to be chicken, they’re actually made from cheesecake. To make, use refrigerated, homemade no-bake cheesecake, and — with clean hands, of course — dig in and grab a chunk. Mold into nugget-like shapes and roll in graham cracker crumbs. Even though there’s no baking, there’s pretty much zero risk of Salmonella. Pair with “ketchup,” aka cherry dipping sauce.

Sushi Sweets

Hmmmm, something looks fishy here. Think again! If you go coconuts for sushi, you’ll gobble up this sweet spin on a savory, tangy Asian bite, where fruit takes center stage, standing in for sushi-grade fish. Sweet chunks of mango, kiwi and strawberry are wrapped in — is that rice? — sweet sticky coconut rice! For a touch of added crunch that screams “tempura,” toss toasted coconut flakes on top. And no matter how you roll, sake’s always a great complement. 

The Remix

The Remix

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Who ever said you needed a matching set?

Photographs by Amy Freeman

Styling by Amy Freeman and Cassie Bustamante

With the season of brunches, showers and casual backyard gatherings upon us, we wanted to take a moment to remind you that some of the prettiest tables are set with a cohesive yet random mix of dishes, florals and produce. Just pick a color story, choose a theme and then? Let your imagination run wild. We scoured High Point’s Boxwood Antique Market and Greensboro’s Twin Brothers Antiques for an eclectic array of dishes, platters and inspired accessories. Then we hit the grocery store for fresh flowers and vegetation. The result? A feast for the eyes.

 

Putting the “gold” in goldfish, this collection of mismatched white-and-gilded dishes allows a quirky plate to draw the eye. Hints of blush and tangerine play off the fish’s colorful scales.

Tea time! Classic blue-and-white blends seamlessly as long as the tones are similar. Set the mood by placing themed books on the table — open to certain pages or stacked in a collection as a centerpiece.

What’s black and white and red all over? This eye-catching table with a fashionable French and equestrian mix featuring hints of gold — classy and casual at the same time.

Green represents new beginnings. Invite someone you’ve just met over and share a spread in mixed greens, featuring simple details and botanicals, plus hints of blush. Gold butterflies add a touch of whimsy, but birds would fly just as well.

Snacks on the beach? Yes, we shell. Sometimes all you need is a charcuterie board, woven baskets, oceanic-inspired serveware and a smattering of seashells and starfish to create a casual picnic that feels just like a day at the beach.

We did say to let your imagination run wild! Take your guests on a safari at this table, where zebra and leopard motifs stand out against simple black-and-white dishes. Bring in color by playing purr-fectly off of the feline’s orange-hued pattern.

Poem April 2024

Poem April 2024

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Penumbra

My father taught me a civil trick.

If you get caught during a rainstorm

at a downtown restaurant, just ask

the bartender if someone left a black umbrella. They will present you with

a cardboard box chock full of them.

It is not a lie: Someone really has left behind each one. You have left many. Part of the loophole is to make sure to give that umbrella to someone who needs it, or at the very least, leave it

in a shady vestibule, on the coat rack next to that sad windbreaker. Otherwise it doesn’t count. Now they could call this all a life hack, but I consider that lacking. The process of inheritance is about so much more than getting what you need.

            — Maura Way

Maura Way’s second collection of poetry, Mummery,
was published in November 2023 by Press 53.

Their Lot in Life

Their Lot in Life

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How Jim and Barbara North composed the hillside symphony called Wood Notes

By Maria Johnson 

Photographs by Amy Freeman

Long before they built their home on a wooded slope that nuzzles up to a small lake in Oak Ridge, Jim and Barbara North got a lot out of their lot.

The Greensboro couple and their children spent many merry hours on the site, visiting friends Bob and Reba Benbow at the Benbows’ rustic getaway home during the 1970s.

“For us, it was a special thing to drive out to Oak Ridge,” says Jim.

The Norths bought two chunks of their friends’ land in the early ’80s. The Norths’ kids, Scott and Cherie, were in college by that time, but Jim and Barbara still felt a connection to the place, and more importantly, they had a vision for the next stage of their life.

The almost-empty nesters would build a new nest on the incline that was blanketed by hardwoods and pines. Residential development had just started in Oak Ridge, now a popular bedroom community thick with brick manses.

“This was out in the country when we came,” Barbara remembers. “There was nothing out here.”

The couple hired renowned local architect Joel Funderburk to draw up their dream. Funderburk’s hallmark was to set a lumber-clad home, paneled with picture windows, on a slope without cutting and filling to create planes of lawn. The esthetic jibed with the Norths’ wishes.

“We wanted it to be as natural as possible,” says Jim. “I wanted to get away from mowing grass.”

Funderburk, who now lives at Well-Spring retirement community, perched the home on the hillside, situating it between the street and the twinkling water below. Inside, the layout is basically two V-shaped wings fused at the middle, where the entrance sits. The front of the home is at ground level. The back is propped up, like a beach house, on wooden pilings set in concrete.

From this perch, the Norths would look through a lattice of branches to see the same scenes as other creatures living on the slope.

The orange confetti of leaves fluttering to earth in the fall.

The gauzy mist of morning rising from the water.

The mote-filled shafts of daylight filtering through tree trunks.

They would hear the same sounds, too — the hollow hoots of barred owls, the watery slaps of beaver tails, the chatty yips of scruffy coyotes, the ringing chants of shiny frogs.

The Norths called their home Wood Notes.

In 1994, they moved from their base, a bungalow in the Lawndale Homes neighborhood, and set about feathering their 2,400-square-foot nest with a highly personal palette of polished antiques, unvarnished folk art and nature-focused fine art they’d collected, along with lush pockets of faux-floral arrangements stemming from Jim’s creative hand.

Outside, they kept it simple, accentuating the native landscape by adding more shade-loving plants — hellebores, rhododendron, yew, mahonia, Japanese maples and ferns.

Considering the home’s exuberant interior and its minimalist wrapper, you might call the whole package a modernist cottage, which seems like a contradiction, but it’s not.

The place reflects the couple’s shared understanding of what was, what is, and what can be. They have a long history — bracketed by more than six decades of marriage — of growing together.

They met in 1961. Jim, a native of St. Simons Island, Ga., was finishing up at Valdosta State University and working as youth director at a local Methodist church. Barbara was a freshman at the college and attended the same church.

They married at the end of Barbara’s freshman year, furthered their educations in Tennessee, and moved to Greensboro in 1964 so Jim could lead the children’s ministry at West Market Street United Methodist Church. A few years later, he pivoted to secular education at a local Head Start training center.

Then, around age 40, Jim had what Barbara describes as a midlife crisis.

He heard a calling to create beauty, a pull he’d felt while working for florists in college. He’d felt the same tug while working for Herschell’s Fabrics, a high-end textiles house in Atlanta.

Guided by his inner light, Jim enrolled in the interior design program at UNCG. He was encouraged by Barbara, who’d finished her biology degree at UNCG, then landed a job with pharmaceutical and agrochemical company Ciba-Geigy.

Jim’s contacts led to a full-time position at Under One Roof, a seller of fine domestic goods in Quaker Village.

“I was building a reputation for floral design,” he says.

When the owners sold the shop, Jim felt stuck.

“I said, ‘What in the world am I going to do now?’” he remembers.

He answered his own question by opening Designs North, a business devoted to the arrangement of interior spaces and flowers — both cut and silk flora, or as they are sometimes called in the industry, PBs, short for permanent botanicals.

He ran the store — first in a shopping center at Lawndale Drive and Martinsville Road, and later in the Westover Gallery of Shops — for 27 years. He retired at age 68.

Eight years Jim’s junior, Barbara worked for several more years, then tacked on a second career as a part-time consultant.

The house evolved with them, becoming a dynamic journal of their interests and activities.

Avid supporters of the arts, the couple bejeweled their walls with paintings by area artists including Roy Nydorf, Connie Logan,  Alexis Levine, Betsy Bevan, Adele Wayman and Leigh Rodenbough.

They adorned their shelves with pottery from Tarboro’s Siglinda Scarpa, Greensboro’s Charlie Tefft and various Seagrove artisans.

They stocked their lofted screened porch, which feels like a treehouse, with so many whimsical birdhouses purchased at Habitat for Humanity fundraisers that the goldfinches and cardinals outside must have been dying for an “open house.”

The Norths understand from first-hand experience the challenges and thrills of creating extraordinary works from ordinary ingredients. Jim still does interpretive floral arrangements for their church, Presbyterian Church of the Covenant on South Mendenhall Street in Greensboro.

“They’re based on my thoughts about relationships and about creating a more sustainable Earth,” he says.

The couple take the concept of “small world” personally.

For several years, they have opened their doors to Friendship Force, an organization co-founded by former President Jimmy Carter to promote home-based visits between people of different cultures.

The Norths have traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Denmark.

They’ve hosted visitors from Japan, Australia, Moldova and Turkey.

And they have participated in the Road Scholar program, formerly Elderhostel, which orchestrates adventures for seniors. In 2023, they went to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. Their group helped to decorate a riverboat float representing Louisiana.

“We crushed coconut,” Jim says, explaining that only botanical materials are used on the eye-popping entries. “Everywhere there was white on the float was crushed coconut.”

The Norths brought back a sweatshirt. A trip to Iceland, with another outfit, yielded a small ceramic bowl.

“We’ve gotten to the point we try not to bring back a lot of stuff. We have so much from over the years. We don’t need one more thing,” says Barbara.

The couple have been trying to thin their material possessions.

“The problem is, we’re so emotionally attached to our things,” says Barbara. “Most everything we’ve got has memories attached, and that’s so hard to give up.”

To Jim, the next step is clear: Move to a retirement community that offers lots of activities.

“We’re young elderly people,” says Jim, who turns 88 next month. “If they have a trip, I’ll be the first person on the bus.”

Barbara, 80, isn’t ready to board yet.

“This year, we will have been in this house 30 years,” she says. “That’s hard to think about. Those 30 years have gone by fast.”  OH

The Art of Gratitude

The Art of Gratitude

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A painter takes his stroke from the canvas to the greens

By Jim Dodson

So why is Dave Baysden smiling?

On the final hole of Rees Jones’ challenging Championship Course at Bryan Park, he’s completed an otherwise sterling round of golf with a bogey on his card.

“Yeah,” he says with a carefree shrug, as he and his playing partners head for a beer in the clubhouse, “that was kind of disappointing, especially after one of my best rounds ever. But how can you not feel happy looking at that?”

He nods toward a fairway tumbling downhill to a slate blue lake glittering in the long light of a golden afternoon, girdled by forests afire with color. “Looks like a painting, doesn’t it,” he muses. “I may have to come back and sketch that.”

Baysden is certainly qualified to do that. A youthful 47, this affable father of two and former engineering artist has taken the golf world at large by storm with soulful paintings of some of the game’s most revered landscapes.

In a fine-art golf world crowded with ultrarealistic renderings of the game’s notable playgrounds, Baysden’s versions of the same tumble with bold movement, swipes of light and color — almost Impressionist in their ability to convey the mood, weather and mythic qualities of his subjects. His work calls to mind the luminous landscapes of 19th-century British Romantic Age painter J.M.W. Turner, works that tug on the emotions as well as the eye.

“I’m not sure I have a particular style,” Baysden allows with characteristic modesty, “because this is all still relatively new to me. What I simply try to capture is what I see and feel when I look at a golf course and other things in the game. People seem to like them.”

Indeed they do.

His distinctive landscapes, illustrations and sketches have turned up lately on everything from the cover of the 2022 President’s Cup program to commercial golf club headcovers. Underscored by a growing portfolio of major client commissions — including leading private and public entities like Pinehurst, The Dormie Club, Ballyhack, Old Town, Secession and the Country Club of Detroit — his distinctive style is popping up almost anywhere golf is enjoyed.

Not long ago he was invited to support the Arnold Palmer Foundation with paintings and design services for the annual Palmer Cup and the restoration of Palmer’s beloved Latrobe Country Club. A collection of 11 of his paintings also recently found their way to Ric Kayne’s spectacular new Te Arai Golf Course in New Zealand. His sketches for the likes of Bandon Dunes and Sweetens Cove, B. Draddy and MacKenzie Golf Bags, meanwhile, speak eloquently about his visionary art’s broad allure to the small-ball world. Landscapes for Royal County Down, Tara Iti and Kauri Cliffs have also recently graced his studio easel in High Point. Last spring, Baysden was commissioned to do a 4’ X 5’ painting of the Cassique Clubhouse for the USGA’s annual Amateur Four-Ball Championship on Kiawah Island. The list goes on and on.

Not bad for a kid nicknamed “Smiley” who grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, doodling in class and church because he believed that helped him concentrate. “I was born a natural doodler,” he says with a laugh. “That really bothered my teachers but, crazy as it sounds, doodling actually helped me pay better attention to what was going on in class. It’s the same now when I’m on a golf course — either doing a live sketch of folks at a tournament or just out on a golf course alone, looking and sketching what I see. My eyes and brain work through my hands. The images come through me to the paper that way. It helps me feel the landscape.”

This somewhat late-in-life gift comes naturally, he explains, from his parents — father, Ron, is a gifted career engineer for AT&T-Bellsouth, and his mom, Carolyn, a lifelong artist. Ditto his sister, Cara, also a visual artist. “Dad is a brilliant engineer, very left brain, analytical and scientific, which was the path I naturally assumed I should follow. But my mother and her father were both landscape painters, so that probably explains why the urge to visually create — to doodle at least — seized my brain early,” he speculates.

After taking a degree in biology at the University of South Carolina, Baysden entered grad school at UNC-Charlotte to earn a master’s degree in geography, which landed him in the planning and development department of a top engineering firm producing detailed maps for major highway projects. “I learned a lot in that job about how creativity could benefit an engineering environment. I drew landscapes from aerial photography that helped the engineers better envision what they were building. I loved the job. That’s why I stayed in it for 18 years.”

Providentially, however, two factors unexpectedly led him into the world of golf. When his company announced a merger with another firm, he was basically left alone in a 6,000-square-foot space with a decreasing workload. “I knew my job was probably destined to be eliminated, so I set up an easel in an empty office and began to go over there to sketch and paint when things got slow. It felt so good, like something calling me back.” His early works were pastoral scenes of barns, fields and nature.  Just for fun, he began putting them on Twitter (now X).

A pivotal moment occurred when, seemingly out of the blue, the pastor of his church in Charlotte invited him to participate in a special project that involved several established artists painting scenes on a wall for the church’s Easter observance. 

“These were top artists, mind you, some really talented folks, and I couldn’t believe he would ask me,” Baysden recalls. “I’d never painted anything that large and so public in my life. The fear of failure was pretty real. But terrifying as that was, I realized something had to get out.”

He credits the minister at Forest Hills Church, Steve Whitby, for providing the push he needed. “He told me just not to say no. To be guided by faith. So, I gave it a shot.”

Right: Swilcan Bridge, Old Course St. Andrews

 

Baysden’s painting of a man struggling to get free of the vines that enwrapped him — simply titled Transgression — struck a powerful chord among those who saw it as a living metaphor for the human yearning for faith and freedom, a perfect Easter message of rebirth that was happening to the artist himself.

“The response from people — and the other artists — took me by surprise. To tell the truth, I had no idea if it was good or not. But they seemed to really see something in my work. It got me thinking, eager to try more.”

As Baysden likes to say, that’s how art found him again. How golf found his art almost seems divinely orchestrated.

One of those who saw his pastoral sketches online was Graylyn Loomis, one of golf’s leading influencers, an Asheville native who helped take his high school golf team to the state championship in 2010 and spent four years attending the University of St Andrews, clocking more than 180 rounds on the Old Course between classes. Loomis’ passion for links architecture and love of the auld game led him to create a popular golf blog and travel newsletter read by thousands of classic golf nuts.

“I loved what I saw Dave doing online and got in touch because of his spectacular illustration of speckled trout,” Loomis says. “His subjects were almost breathtakingly beautiful. They had such a natural feel, I just had to know who this guy was and where he came from.”

“I remember Loomis asked me — Who are you?” Baysden recalls with a laugh. “We had a great conversation that changed my life.”

Loomis felt Baysden’s luminous art leant itself perfectly to a painting a golf course, and wondered if Baysden would be up for an interview for his blog and consider doing a couple of watercolor paintings of St Andrews and Cypress Point.

“I was floored. I grew up playing golf with my dad and friends but had never painted a golf course before,” says Baysden. “It was kind of scary to think I could possibly paint from photographs. But he also said he saw something unique in my work, so I was willing to try.”

“I simply told Dave that his work was so different a wider audience needed to see it,” Loomis remembers. “I even offered to pay him, but he said he wouldn’t take any money. That’s how humble Dave is. I told him those days would probably be ending soon.”

Today, both paintings hang in Loomis’ home. “His paintings capture the soul of golf. When you look at his work, whatever the subject, you feel like you are really there with him. That sets him apart, in my view.”

Encouraged by the strong response on Loomis’ website, Baysden began posting a daily cartoon of whatever was happening in golf on Twitter, which landed him a gig as roving cartoonist at the PGA Tour Championship.

“It was an amazing experience. They told me to draw whatever caught my attention. I honestly didn’t even know what to charge them. That’s how inexperienced I was. But it was a blast — the first time I’d ever sketched and walked a golf course at the same time.”

His signed originals of the four “scenes” he produced during the championship’s first two days were presented to the top finishers.

Left: Augusta National, Hole 12

Right: ArborLinks, 5th Hole

 

For the PGA Merchandise Show that following winter, Baysden was commissioned to paint a 5’ X 8’  backdrop of the second hole at Old McDonald at Bandon Dunes, which hung in the firm’s booth along with his painted headcovers. “I did the work in our garden shed,” he remembers with a laugh, “because that became my studio at home, where I could disappear and sketch and paint for hours without worrying about the mess.”

That same year, 2018, Tour star Zack Blair invited Baysden to come play and paint at his inaugural two-day event called “The Ringer” at Sweetens Cove. “Dave was really perfect for our event. He did a couple paintings that we auctioned off and everyone loved his work,” explains Blair.

“That’s really where I fell in love with playing the game again,” says Baysden. “I’d never walked a golf course until Sweetens Cove. I saw the game in a new light, one where friends share their love of the game and true fellowship. It was a true eye-opening experience.”

Not surprisingly, Blair became an enthusiastic friend and patron. “Dave’s art is extraordinary. I have an entire gallery wall of his work at home [in Utah] — not just golf art but also his river scenes, barns and lots of other non-golf subjects. My mother has several of his paintings, too,” says Blair, pointing out that Baysden has been the artist-in-residence at every “Ringer” since the Dormie Club, Streamsong and Sand Valley.

Back home in his studio in High Point — a spare bedroom with north-facing windows, his largest  workspace ever — “Smiley the Doodler” finds himself hard at work on a stream of new projects, including work for the approaching 2024 US Open at Pinehurst.

Yet, true to his nature, he takes time to count his blessings.

Maybe most important of all, he explains, as the reach of his artistic gifts continue to expand across Planet Golf, his friendships through the game have deepened and grown in especially meaningful ways. Perhaps his most notable role has been in the creation of a group of spiritually-minded golfers who started the “Restoration Club,” a faith-based band of brothers who enjoy the fellowship of the game and a community that encourages them to walk with Jesus and be better husbands, brothers, dads and friends.

“I’m still blown away by the generosity of the golf world, so grateful how this all happened,” he muses. “My wife, Mandy, encouraged me at every step of the way and the golf world had been incredible. It’s a long game, as they say, and I’m still learning. But that’s the beauty of golf — and, for that matter, living in this world. There’s always something new that catches my attention. I see it,” he adds, still smiling, “and I want to paint it.”  OH

Greensboro: A Cultural Herstory

Greensboro: A Cultural Herstory

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Eight women who made a lasting mark on the city

By Cassie Bustamante

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re paying homage to the fierce females who were pioneers in Greensboro’s arts and culture scene. Some you may know; others you may not.

Photograph © Greensboro History Museum Collection

MARTHA SEBASTIAN

Beginning in the late 1800s, Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie made his fortune in iron, oil and steel, and then invested it in one of the most valuable commodities: public knowledge. At a time when segregation laws were still in place, Carnegie funded 2,500 libraries, including 12 free-to-use libraries, dubbed “Carnegie Negro libraries,” for underserved Blacks. In 1924, Greensboro’s Bennett College became the site of the last one built, and Martha Sebastian, a library science graduate of Simmons College in Boston, became head librarian, a role she maintained until her death in 1948. By 1930, Sebastian had built the largest collection of any public segregated library in the state. Sebastian also amassed an African American literature collection and created a meeting space for Black organizations. Knowledge is power, and, under her leadership, the library empowered those it served. Today the former library houses offices for Bennett College. Nearby, a meeting room at the Vance H. Chavis Branch Library is dedicated to Sebastian.

Photograph Courtesy of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Portrait of Laura Weill Cone, 1910 The Carolinian

LAURA WEILL CONE

Hands down, Cone is one of the most recognized surnames in Greensboro history. Brothers Moses and Ceasar established their business, Cone Export and Commission Company, in 1891, which led to a textile empire that culminated in today’s denim innovator, Cone Denim. The name can be seen on schools, street signs and any number of medical facilities throughout the city. But it was the Cone women who would have a profound impact on the city’s art scene. Thanks to the family’s lucrative business, sisters Claribel and Etta were afforded the luxury of global travel and collecting art. In Paris, they rubbed elbows with the likes of Picasso and Matisse, and began collecting Modern art. Their sister-in-law, Laura Weill Cone, married to brother Julius, was a loyal Woman’s College (now UNCG) grad who worried that the school’s Weatherspoon Art Gallery was struggling. She asked Etta to consider a donation. Upon Etta’s death in 1949, a large collection was left to Woman’s College. So next time you admire Picasso’s The Coiffure while perusing the free-admittance gallery, think of Laura and the Cone sisters. Without them, the graceful ink sketch of a Parisian beauty admiring her hairdo in a mirror would doubtless be hanging somewhere other than Greensboro.

Photograph © Greensboro History Museum Collection

By piloting students into a career in flying, Mary Nicholson gave wings to the dreams of others.

MARY NICHOLSON

Anybody who’s seen an N.C. license plate knows we’re “First in Flight,” but you may not know that the first female in the state to earn both a commercial pilot’s and transport license was Spartan Mary Nicholson. Born in Greensboro in 1905, Nicholson attended North Carolina College for Women (now UNCG) to study music, but, after taking her first flight in 1927, decided the only high notes worth hitting were in the friendly skies. How did she get aloft? Easy. She parachuted out of a plane as an ad for a flying school. In 1929, she became a charter member of The Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots — founded by Amelia Earhart, Fay Gillis Wells and Ila Loetscher, and still around almost 100 years later. She was one of 25 civilian women on the British Air Transport Auxiliary unit during World War II. On May 22, 1943, Nicholson died doing what she loved after her engine froze up, demolishing her propeller mid-flight. Despite her best efforts, she crashed into a stone barn in Worcestershire County, England. Next time you’re preparing for takeoff at PTI and see a female in the cockpit, you can thank Mary Nicholson for paving the runway for others.

Photograph Courtesy of the Leung Family

Whether as unofficial “mayor” or “mother” of Tate Street, Amelia Leung fed and nurtured her community.

AMELIA LEUNG

In 1969, Amelia Leung, a trained nurse who was working at the Lotus restaurant in downtown Greensboro, and her husband Robert, a recent N.C. A&T grad with a degree in electrical engineering, were cruising along Tate Street when they noticed a restaurant, the Apple Cellar, for sale. According to Leung in a November 2016 O.Henry story, the owners weren’t jiving with the rising hippie scene. A couple years later, Hong Kong House opened and dished out more than cuisine; it created its own culture. Amelia blended her Chinese family recipes with customer and staff suggestions, a fusion ahead of its time. But more than the diners, the local musicians were nourished by Amelia and remember her as the “mother of Tate Street.” She offered free meals to starving artists in exchange for playing at her restaurant. Creating a neighborhood atmosphere that welcomed everyone, she helped organize the very first Tate Street Festival in 1973. While the restaurant closed in 1999 and Amelia died in 2021 at the age of 77, the festival returned to Tate Street last fall after a three-year hiatus, once again bringing music, food and people together.

Photograph © Greensboro History Museum Collection
Family portrait of Edward London, Sadie Mack London, and daughter Evelyn

SADIE MACK LONDON

Sadie Mack, born in South Carolina in 1898, was drawn to the business of beauty from a young age and moved to New York City to pursue her passion. There, she learned cosmetology as well as product manufacturing at Poro Beauty College. Post graduation, she became licensed in the Empire State. But when her brother fell ill, Mack moved to Greensboro to care for him. No powder-puff entrepreneur, she opened her own Gate City beauty shop and married a widowed tailor named Edward D. London. Together they created a joint Black-owned establishment featuring his tailoring and dry-cleaning services, as well as her salon, where she began teaching cosmetology. In 1935, Edward left his tailoring business and the couple opened Maco Beauty College at 505 E. Market St. Quickly outgrowing the space, MBC relocated to a former hotel, which allowed for dormitories as well as other amenities. Sadie died in 1942, but, under Edward’s direction, the school flourished and, during its 34 years in business, trained over 1,000 cosmetologists. Maybe she was born with it, but it certainly didn’t die with her.

MARGARET FALKENER

In December 2023, North Carolina A&T State University won ESPN’s inaugural award for HBCU Band of the Year in Division I. Bang the drum for Band Director Kenneth Ruff, but let’s remember Margaret Mitchell Falkener, who founded the music department in 1894. She opened doors for the Blue and Gold Machine to march right through. Born in 1870 in Oberlin, Ohio, Falkener, a talented pianist, came to the Tar Heel State to teach. After settling with her husband in Greensboro, not only did she found the Aggies’ music department, but she also volunteered for more than 800 hours in 1918 alone, providing home service to Black families affected by World War I, and served as the first female supervisor of Guilford County Black schools. Founder of the county’s first Black garden club, an organizing member of Unified Institutional Baptist Church and the mother of five sons, one of whom would become a city councilman, Falkener died in 1938, but her beat goes on.

Photograph by Sam Froelich

Elissa Minet Fuchs instructing a class

ELISSA FUCHS

By the time Elissa Minet Fuchs came to Greensboro in 1976, she’d already had quite an impressive career as a ballerina, radio actress and choreographer. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1919 to a Jewish American family, Fuchs left at the age of 16 to pursue a professional dance career in Chicago, where she’d heard opportunity awaited. A grand jeté of faith? Perhaps, but from there she pirouetted into professional dancing and teaching for years to come, including work on Broadway, with Ballet Russe, a 12-year stint as a soloist and corps de ballet member at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and the founding of the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre. When her husband, Dr. Peter Paul Fuchs, took on the role of Greensboro Symphony and Opera conductor, Fuchs began serving on the board at the Greensboro Ballet, where she would later choreograph and teach — well into her 90s! In 1981, Fuchs and director Maryhelen Mayfield decided to bring The Nutcracker to the Gate City. It remains a long-standing tradition today. Fuchs died in February 2023 at the age of 103. On her obituary page, one word reappears in the comments left by those who remember her: legend.

Photograph © Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

SANDRA HUGHES

If you tuned into WFMY News 2 from 1972–2011, chances are you found the face of Sandra Hughes — a proud Aggie alum-turned-professor — smiling back at you. In 1974, shortly after launching her career in journalism, Hughes became the first Black woman to host her own daily talk show in the Piedmont, Sandra and Friends, which ran for four years. In a 2019 WFMY News story, Hughes recalled receiving bomb threats at the station because of her show, saying “People didn’t think that the time had come for a Black woman to be doing a show by herself on television.” Not only did she prove them wrong, but she became one of the most recognizable names in Triad journalism. As Greensboro History Museum curator of community history Glenn Perkins notes, we can thank her for “opening the door to a generation of journalists.”  OH

Wine Not Now?

Wine Not Now?

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Women forge their own wine trails into the industry

By Cynthia Adams

Photographs by Bert VanderVeen

In 1987, the Center for Creative Leadership’s Ann Morrison famously wrote about a confounding and confining glass ceiling: “The glass ceiling is a barrier so subtle that it is transparent; yet so strong that it prevents women from moving up the corporate hierarchy.”

Women working in the business of wine may find its ceiling shatterproof. Historically, the wine industry was and continues to be headlined by male names.

Yet half of female drinkers prefer wine over beer and spirits, and, when it comes to the work place, more choose the wine industry over other alcoholic beverage careers. No less than the venerable Wine Spectator acknowledges the archetypal wine drinker as “dominantly female.” 

If that’s the case, why are so few women in the wine industry, either at the helm or involved at a managerial level? Instead of trying to answer that question, perhaps it’s more productive to look at what women are bringing to the wine scene that might otherwise be missing and explore what impact women are having here in the Triad and Greensboro, where certified female sommeliers outnumber males.

“Men have a bigger voice,” says Julia Luce, who operates The Public House, a High Point business hosting private events and wine dinners. While not a sommelier, she has forged relationships with growers and suppliers. “Women are more polite,” she says. Luce seeks opportunities in nontraditional ways, such as wine classes and pairing events she develops herself. In a word, she says wine is “social.” Rather than cultivars, something she can also talk about endlessly, Luce has focused on cultivating a wine community of her own making. 

“Wine is about gathering people together. It is all about your food, your taste, friendships. The conversation. It’s never political or hostile. When you open a bottle of wine, it is over something good. If not celebratory, it’s a discussion. If wine was a person, wine would be a diplomat.”

The Public House grew out of Luce’s previous job. 

“In 2012, I worked for a French-Canadian furniture company — they loved wines. They created a commercial kitchen in their showroom and started doing dinners,” she says. “That building is now Earl’s Landing restaurant [in High Point.]”

There, Luce learned to present wines and create wine events. “Now, here I am.”

Stacey Land, vice president at 1618 Concepts, which owns 1618 West Seafood Grill and 1618 Midtown, has had a similarly circuitous route to becoming a female player in the Triad wine scene. Ascending to that role in 2020 from general manager and sommelier at 1618 Midtown, she had spent years working her way through the ranks from washing dishes, eventually becoming Greensboro’s second certified female sommelier via the Master Court of Sommeliers.

Land, who grew up in the food industry, was mentored by the first, Julia Hunt, an advanced sommelier at American Premium Beverage, formerly at Green Valley Grill, where they met.

(Certification requires candidates demonstrate advanced tasting skills and mastery of theory and service. There are various levels and attainments, one through five, with master sommelier the highest. Depending upon the source — and day — there are an estimated 273 worldwide master sommeliers and 164,000 certified sommeliers in the US. There are only a few accrediting bodies, including the famous Court of Master Sommeliers. Two other bodies, the National Wine School, and Wine & Spirit Education Trust, also certify sommeliers. The majority of working wine professionals industry wide are not actually sommeliers.)

Land joined 1618 in 2010. In 2021, she also earned a third level wine certification via the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.   

In the December 2017 issue of Seasons, Ross Howell Jr. wrote “Somm and Substance,” describing how Triad sommeliers, including Land, pursued the grueling path to certification. 

As with chefs, Land mentions, women in wine are the exception versus the rule. 

Once, Land “had dreams of being a writer and newspaper person.” Graduating from UNCG in 2004 with an English degree, she jokes, “It was like coming into the horse-and-buggy industry the year they invented cars.”

Returning to the restaurant world, Land bought into the former Grappa Grill, which soon closed in 2008.

“I had another crisis of am I in the right business?” 

Land flung herself into working full time at 1618 while prepping for — and passing — sommelier exams. “All of my certifications came within the last 12–13 years when working at [1618] West.” 

Left: Jennifer Talton & Julia Luce

She prepares wine lists and oversees the total guest experience, and fondly mentions 1618’s “Book Club,” their tongue-in-cheek monthly wine club, as a fun way to share wine knowledge. But professionally, she pays her knowledge forward by mentoring female and male colleagues seeking certification, like Hunt once did for her.

1618 colleague Evans Mack also grew up entrenched in the world of food, beverages and service. Now she is the restaurant’s second female sommelier. Land mentions her friend Jake Asaf, owner of Greensboro’s Lewis & Elm restaurant and Rioja! Wine Bar, who qualified as a sommelier at the same time she did.

Meanwhile, Luce has resumed monthly wine dinners halted by COVID. “Ju Ju’s Supper Club” is the latest venture offshoot of her business, partnering with Painted Plate Catering. (They restarted in February.)    

Wine dinners create a chain of opportunities for minorities working in the wine industry, Luce says, citing vineyard owners, an organic chef named Jennifer Talton, and a female wine importer. Luce maintains an office in Greensboro’s Fisher Park, decorated with plates signed by vineyard owners

“When you drink wine to enjoy, savor and pair it . . . that, to me, is to live,” says Luce. After all, she adds, “the French are living a long, healthy life because they do it — drink wine — with love and friendship.”

There are a number of other women earning a living in wine service in the Triad. In downtown Winston-Salem, Taylor Beal is one of three sommeliers at Katharine’s Bar & Brasserie, which opened in 2016. “I am the only female.” She earned her level one certification in 2019 through the Master Court, slowed by the pandemic. “I had COVID, which messed up my smell. I’m studying for level three.” 

Then there are wine shops and tasting rooms, such as longtime mainstay Zeto wine and specialty shop in downtown Greensboro, owned by Despina Demetriades and Su Peterson. 

Founded in 1999, Zeto has carved a niche with grapes that “are grown and produced mostly without chemicals or pesticides,” said Peterson in a televised interview. The shop features a Vinomatic, an automatic wine machine dispensing nearly 30 bottles for sampling, convenient for Zeto’s ongoing wine tastings and classes.

At least two other Greensboro tasting rooms have female owners. Alison Breen of the Tasting Room, and J’mihyia and Paris Whitsett of Marjae’s Wine Bar.

Sometimes, key players in the business of wine take lucrative, yet less visible, roles. “A team of women at Johnson Brothers wine distributors has worked together as wine reps since it was bought,” Land says. 

Left: Barbara Raffaldini

Middle: Evans Mack & Stacey Land

Right: Dr. Stephanie Bolton

 

Although approximately 200 wineries call North Carolina home, few statistics reveal how many women are at the helm or are involved on a managerial level. One is in the N.C. foothills at Raffaldini Vineyards, where Barbara Raffaldini, splits her life between running Raffaldini and a legal career.

In 2020, sister publication Seasons cover story featured Barbara, who co-owns the winery with Jay, her brother. “Fortune Favors the Bold,” discussed her dual careers as a winery owner and partner for an Illinois law firm. 

There remains an elephant in the tasting room. Something Land mentions over a glass of rosé at 1618’s wine bar in Midtown: whether women can hold their own in such a male-centric milieu.

Land worries that women, as an industry minority, struggle with imposter syndrome. She drops her voice. “I’ve been in this business for 20 plus years; if I don’t know how to do this, who does? Have I been faking this? No.”

The comment reflects what author Valerie Young presents in her research. Highly capable and accomplished women, Young writes, may wrestle with that, particularly in male-dominated fields. 

“You can have all the confidence in the world and still be reluctant to self-promote out of a steadfast belief that a person’s work should speak for itself. It doesn’t.”

To Young’s point, minorities in certain industries may also face unfounded criticism.

Quietly, Land says, “I think it’s in jobs that are male-dominated for so long. Think of women chefs. If you’re a professional woman in an industry that has been male dominated for so long . . . you feel that imposter syndrome.”

Worse, others may ask, “‘How did that woman get to the top of that field?’” 

That especially stings. Land’s father, who graduated from Napa’s Culinary Institute of America and remained in the restaurant field until his retirement, begged her not to follow him in the restaurant business. Now, she says proudly, he will call and ask her advice about wines.

Luce agrees that women struggle for a seat at the bar. “We are, industry wide, underrepresented.” 

A few years ago, I met Karen McNeil, author of The Wine Bible and a leading light in the wine world. She says, “The road up the mountain is long and sometimes confusing.”

Lesser known are women working in viticulture, the cultivation of grapes. One, Dr. Stephanie Bolton, is leading the way concerning safer and sustainable practices for growers from the rural heart of zinfandel country in Lodi, CA. 

A North Carolina native who once studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Wake Forest University, Bolton was recognized last August in Wine Enthusiast magazine’s “Future Forty” for her achievements in viticulture through her research and educational work at the Lodi Winegrape Commission. 

Now, her leadership and global initiatives with domestic and international wine growers extends as far as Israel, earning industry distinction.

“I can tell you that in general we are seeing more women get involved on the viticulture side of things, says Bolton. “It’s nice to have both the male and female perspectives in the wine industry positions — we all benefit from that.”

Bolton adds, “I can’t speak for all women, but I prefer wine as a drink of choice over beer and liquor because it transcends me to a time — the vintage — and place — the region it is from — while offering art, romance, history, education and elevating my dinner into a true feast for the senses. Even better when the wine was produced by a friend and I get to feel that special connection, too.”

Connections are key, as Luce suggests. Raise a glass while raising support, too, promoting fellow minorities who are gaining entrée to a once closed industry. 

Outliers, perhaps. Regardless, they are chipping away at the glass ceiling, proving it isn’t impervious after all.  OH

Spirits, Beer and Wine:

Chardonnay in the Brewery?

Two years ago, Fodor’s Travel writer Alex Temblador asked, “Why are there so few women in the spirits, beer and wine business?” 

The Distillers Association of North Carolina reports at present approximately 22 of 90 distilleries in our state are “owned, co-owned or managed by women.”

Meantime, women are forging inroads into brewery’s upper management. One example is Renee L’Heureux, who leads operations at Red Oak Brewery in Whitsett, N.C., including its Lager Haus and Biergarten.

Here, too, is an interesting acknowledgement of women as consumers of wine.  Although the brewery’s German-style beers have a dedicated following, their tasting room also offers a carefully curated wine list. During a week in mid-January, she says, their team spent hours reviewing wine offerings.

Why?

L’Heureux points out, “The industry standard is that 85 percent of wine drinkers at breweries are women.”

Why not offer a decent list, she asks?

Red Oak’s wine list is thoroughly considered, a pragmatic choice, she explains.