PHOTOGRAPHING THE OZARKS

 PHOTOGRAPHING THE OZARKS 

NOTE: Fields Photography traveled the Ozarks countryside capturing the times of the day before settling down in Cassville, Missouri. I write more about traveling photographers in another blog post, see more...

After I began selling my freelance writing, I decided I wanted to write something for a special magazine dear to the hearts of Ozarkians, "The Ozarks Mountaineer." In my neck of the woods to be published in that magazine meant you were a top-notch writer with a heart for the Missouri Ozarks and the details of Ozarks life. 

I queried the editor at that time, Mr. Clay Anderson, time after time with stories I, and my writing mentor, Kay Hively who is now deceased, just knew fit the Mountaineer like it should. Nope. Anderson turned my queries down every single time. I was devastated as the proverbial writer should be. 

I labored, I toiled, and I wrote/rewrote many articles that I just knew fit the specialized magazine. Never did I publish one single article with Mr. Clay Anderson. 

One day while looking through my old photographs during a family history search, I ran across the family photographs taken by Fields Photo of Cassville, Missouri. Fields had long since passed on and his treasure trove of old negatives was housed at the Barry County Museum located in Cassville, Missouri. 

The idea struck. I would write about the Ozarkian famous photographer, Fred Fields! And I did. I used a couple of my family's photos with the Fields logo imprinted on them, decided to name the manuscript "Photographing the Ozarks," and sent the query to the editor. It was not Clay Anderson! Mr. Fred Pfister had taken over the editor's desk when Anderson died. Pfister loved the article and agreed to publish it! 

When I received the check in the mail for my story, I won. I persevered, wrote, rewrote, and wrote again, and finally found the story that was "just right" for the good old magazine. The Mountaineer is now defunct. But my story is a part of the legacy. 

My beautiful article was published in  THE OZARKS MOUNTAINEER magazine during the Summer of 2011. Here's a photo of the summer edition.

It all started when Fred Fields went to college in Oklahoma and learned photography while working in the college lab. After graduation, Fields went to work in a photographer’s studio in Dodge City, Kansas. It was there he met and married his wife, Cleo. Fields enjoyed photography and he wanted to make it his mission in life. One day he and Cleo took off traveling in the countryside, going from town to town taking pictures. That was back in the good old days of the 1930s. By then, the couple had nicknamed each other “Pa” and “Ma.”  When they rolled into Cassville, Missouri, they decided to make the Barry County town their home.

Here's a photo of the spread.

Photography had grown to be a popular occupation as well as a hobby for people since the early days of its inception, but in the heart of the Depression, money was tight. After Pa and Ma Fields set up their photography studio in an upstairs building on the Cassville Square, they offered tiny gem-style photos measuring one-inch x one-and-one-half inches and sold them three for a dollar. Business bloomed and Fields Photo Shop was born. Fields was living his dream.

During the Depression years, the Fields boosted their photography business by advertising they would photograph anything, anywhere, anytime. The couple began traveling around the area photographing people, architecture, events, and nature. My Utter family began an annual reunion in 1935 at Big Spring Park in Neosho, Missouri. Each year the Utters counted on Fields to photograph their event.

In those early days, Fields Photo took pictures of local and area-wide schools. Along with photographing individual children, many graduating classes are preserved in formal groups. The Rocky Comfort Elementary School in McDonald County, south of Longview, owns a vintage set of graduating class pictures.  As a traveling photographer, Fields soon adopted the slogan, “Photographing the Ozarks.”

During World War II, the photography business slowed down as film was hard to get due to military demands. Fields saved what film he had for photographing the spouses and children of those in the military. In the 1940s, Fields bought a parrot and named her Polly. Polly stayed in the studio and was a favorite of customers. The camera captured the smiles and laughter brought about by Polly. To help ease the stress of waiting or sitting for the camera, Ma Fields used many tactics such as tickling children on the belly with a yardstick to make them laugh.

In 1952, the Fields’ son, Max, and his wife, Margie, joined the photography team.

During this time, the studio’s name changed to Fields’ Photo and Camera Shop. Fields added photography supplies such as cameras, film, batteries, and General Electric flash bulbs. They also added a new wholesale route to customers farther south of Cassville. In 1957, Pa and Ma Fields retired from managing the photography studio but continued to help with the Kodak finishing until 196

After moving their photography studio again in 1962, Fields Photo and Camera Shop remained at 903 Main Street in Cassville until the business closed. When Max Fields bought a computer for the office, they used it to begin the monumental task of cataloging the old negatives. It took seven years to finish, but the project helped birth what was to come.

Through the years, the Fields family flew nationwide from New York to California and everywhere in between to photograph weddings, reunions, business and civic groups, military units, fraternal organizations, and schools. Ma Fields passed away in 1984 and Pa Fields in 1987. In 1988, after more than 55 years of serving the public, Max Fields decided to discontinue retail sales and portraiture and specialize in large group photos, school photos, and sports photography

In 1995, the building was sold and the processing laboratory, along with the one million negatives weighing 3900 pounds, was moved to the Fields’ residence. Max and Margie continued to serve the public by offering a place where customers could browse the listing of old negatives, find what they wanted, and have them reprinted. Imagine the excitement this process served when genealogists, looking for long-lost ancestor’s pictures, finally found them! It was also a great endeavor for local historical projects and a Cassville bank began printing yearly calendars featuring historical Barry County photos made from the old negatives.

Eventually, Max and Margie Fields retired, and Max formed a plan to keep all of the negatives of the pictures he had taken safe. The negatives were moved to the new Barry County Museum, located on Highway 112 in Cassville, Missouri. There, the Fields Photo archives, housed inside the museum, is open to the public. Visitors may search the collection by subject name and then request a contact sheet of pertinent negatives. Fees for the reprints vary according to the print size ordered. All profits are donated to the Barry County Historical Society

The Archives is a treasure for genealogists and historians. According to the staff at the Barry County Museum, business is brisk for reprints from the old negatives. Through the years, my family frequented Fields Photo Shop. My personal album of photographs documented generations of grandparents, parents, siblings, and myself posing for the camera.

Fred “Pa” Fields began living his dream in the 1930s. He enjoyed serving the public and traveling miles to preserve people’s smiles, capture regional and local history, and visually record life in the Ozarks. His dream lives on as the Archives continue to serve the public. Photographing the Ozarks is exactly what Pa and Ma Fields did. On the second page, upper right corner is a photograph of my late Grandad, Perry Gresham Utter, who sat for a professional photo session with Fields during the 1950s.

REFERENCES: 

1. Interview with Max Fields, Cassville, Missouri, by Karen Utter Jennings, 03 April 2009. Transcript held in 2009 by Utter Jennings, Neosho, Missouri.

2. BARRY COUNTY REFLECTIONS. Barry County Museum Quarterly Volume 11, Issue 3, (September 2009) 4.

 3. Interview with Margie Fields, Cassville, Missouri, by Karen Utter Jennings, 28 December 2009. Transcript held in 2009 by Utter Jennings, Neosho, Missouri.

 4. Max Fields. HISTORY OF FIELDS’ PHOTO – CASSVILLE, MO. 2004. Barry County, MO online database accessed at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~haddockfamily/field.htm. Fields data downloaded 17 October 2009.