Margaret - Family Photographer

 

The above photo of Mom (Margaret Walls) holding LeRoy is one of the rare ones with her in the picture. She was the one who usually took the pictures. Most of the black and white photographs used in "Our Town" stories were taken in the 1940's and 1950's by Margaret. She used a Kodak "Brownie" camera shaped like a black box with no flash attachment so they are all outside photos. She was not a photographer - just a mother who loved her farm family. She liked to record events in the life of her children and her extended family and community. Her photographs were generally posed (to conserve film and developing costs) but often included farm animals, tractors, cars barns and occasionally even the outhouse in the background. These served to date and add interest to her photographs. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

 

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

Farm wife, mother, grandmother, Cabool Enterprise reporter for Mt. Pisgah Church & community, friend and Family Photographer

Margaret Douglas got her Kodak Brownie camera in 1935, a couple of years before she married Lloyd Walls. In fact her “Kodak” was a present from another boyfriend. She never had any training in photography or any ambition for showing her photos beyond her family.

She just cared about people in her family and community and wanted to record how they looked.

Due to the cost of a roll of film (20 cents) and film development she couldn’t just go around snapping off dozens of pictures, so many of her subjects were posed for the camera. She wanted everyone to look their best.

She enjoyed farm animals and these were included in many of her photos. Cars, tractors and farm buildings were common backgrounds. These cars and other objects turned out to be wonderful for sharing the time period the photographs were taken. Sometimes the background revealed a lot about everyday life on the Walls farm—with farm animals (chickens, dogs, cats, cows and horses), clothes on the line and even the outhouse showing up.

Since Margaret didn’t get a camera with a flash bulb (and color film) until 1967, most of her earlier photos are outside shots but that was quite appropriate on the Walls farm as much of their life was spent outdoors.

Margaret’s rules for her pictures seemed to be:

  • No unhappy folks
  • Stand up straight
  • No squinting
  • No shadows
  • All look at the camera
  • No outhouses in the background
  • Get it in one try

Most of Margaret’s photographs follow these rules, yet for each rule there are at least a handful of exceptions that slipped through. At the time the photographs were taken it is sometimes obvious that her kids weren’t as serious about following rules and good pictures as she was.

For more than 30 years, starting in 1935, Margaret Walls took about 1,000 photographs. Like most parents she maybe took a few more of Keith, her oldest child, than her other four—but generally she was persistent in taking a broad selection of pictures year in and year-out.

Margaret’s photographs are generally of the Lloyd Walls farm, the Walls family, the Douglas family and the Mt. Pisgah community. Yet because of the cars, animals and farm background they clearly represent much of rural America from a time that is long gone and will never return. I am proud of Margaret for her real life farm photographs and especially proud to be the son of Margaret Douglas Walls.

 

12/31/1999