KENLY, N.C. (AP) - Kermit Wall of Kenly is creating a legacy of the past for generations to come. At 81 years old, he paints detailed history on canvas and handwrites the stories that match the pictures of places and events of his boyhood. He calls this time of remembering his second childhood as memories flood in of his past that he hasn’t thought of in years.
He immediately made me feel welcome as he came out on the porch of his Kenly farmhouse and then introduced me to his wife, Miss Annie. He led me to their kitchen table where he had prepared for our visit by neatly placing a stack of his paintings on the table, handing me a piece of notebook paper with a handwritten story matching one of the paintings.
“They all mean something to me. It’s a part of me,” he said.
Most of his stories date back to the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s in Wilson, Wayne and Johnston counties. All come from personal experiences except for a couple of fictional stories.
He laughs as he’s telling me some of the stories and then gets serious, but still light-hearted, when he says that some of the stories are strange, and that nobody might believe they actually happened. He’s a little like a history book that mingles the past as part of the present.
One of his paintings depicts a stick chimney on a building, while his parents’ home is shown as a freshly painted white farmhouse as it was when he was growing up. Another painting shows boys on a transplanter setting out tobacco plants in the field; one shows two boys and a pig riding in a truck.
“They all have a good story,” he said.
Wall was born to William Kermit Wall and Madie Barnes Wall in 1934 at Woodard Herring Hospital in Wilson. He attended school in Kenly and Nahunta but quit after the seventh grade. He said that his four brothers finished school, but his parents didn’t make him finish. He had rather have done almost anything but go to school.
Wall has never taken an art lesson. He remembers that his first grade school teacher kept his painting of a Christmas tree and showed it to the other teachers at school. He didn’t think of his talent as anything too great.
“It was something that come easy to me.”
He started painting his life stories three years ago when he started remembering them from his youth. “I had never thought of doing a picture like that when I was younger.” He said that when you’re young, you think differently about different things.
When he was growing up, he always wanted a picture to go with the story he was reading, so he made that happen with his stories.
Although he grew up on a local farm, he farmed little in his adult life. One of the places he worked was Kent Furniture in Goldsboro. He worked in the sample shop, building blueprints for furniture for 33 years. He also worked with Wayne Agriculture and served in the Army.
His hobbies don’t stop with painting and telling stories. He also has played the banjo since he was 18 years old. And he still plays in the Bolden Creek Bandits every Saturday night in the Blue Barn by his home. Free admission is offered to anyone who wants to visit and listen to gospel, country and bluegrass music. And, of course, the walls are lined with his paintings and pictures of people he knows and entertainers of the past.
He said they used to have a house full on Saturday nights, but a lot of the senior citizens have passed on as well as some members of the band.
Wall is not concerned about getting bored. His hobbies keep him entertained, and he doesn’t use his hobbies to make money. He said he never had to use his hobby to make money because he had a talent for working.
So why does he spend his time writing and painting? He wants to share his stories.
“When I’m gone, they’ll be gone.”
With his writing and paintings, this portion of local history will be preserved.
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Information from: The Wilson Daily Times, https://www.wilsondaily.com
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