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From Page D1
Moseley
corporation that produces videos and other visual materials that celebrate Mississippi?s heritage. Copies of the video, which still is in production, will be distributed to Mississippi schools and libraries.
Janie O?Keefe, executive director of the corporation, said she wanted people to be able to hear Moseley?s stories as well as see her paintings. ?She does her wonderful art, but every picture has a story,? O?Keefe said.
On a table at Moseley?s home is a framed letter from Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove thanking her for her painting Batesville Square: "Alice, the painting which the Hancock Chamber gave me was beautiful. My wife has already laid claim to it.?
Mean Joe Green, the former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman, bought her painting She Loves to Teach With That Hickory Stick. ?He bought it at the bank downtown in Memphis (where she had a show) and he wouldn?t even let them wrap it up," Moseley said. ?He got on the plane with it under his arm.?
A native of Birmingham, Moseley, whose maiden name was Latimer, lived with her mother, father and younger sister in a big house in an affluent section of town. They had a gardener and a cook. Her father was assistant superintendent with Republic Iron and Steel Co.
Moseley was a tomboy. ?I liked boy?s games,? she said. "I didn?t like playing house, dolls and that sort of stuff.?
That hasn?t changed. ?I don?t care much about women and meetings. I don?t think I?m such an intellectual, but I don?t like the idea of spending three hours deciding whether the lemonade's going to be pink or yellow.?
Her mother tried to make Moseley more ladylike. ?I think she gave up on me pretty early. And I was delighted when she did. But one day a week I had to cook. It?s a wonder I like to cook like I do now. One day I had to make a banana pie four times before it passed my mom?s scrutiny. She thought it was just good training for me.? Moseley?s father encouraged her love of sports. "My dad was quite an athlete. He could have been a professional baseball or tennis (player).?
When she was 18, Moseley was on the tennis team at the University of Alabama. But life changed dramatically for her that spring.
She and her father were talking one April morning in 1929. "He said, ?Honey, you need to go get your hair cut. It?s just so hot now and your hair?s so long.? So, I went to the beauty parlor. She cut my hair about halfway ?round and I said, ?I have to go.? She said, ?Why?? I said, ?I don?t know. But I just have to go.?
?So, I left and I started running and ran all the way home, which was all of seven or eight blocks.?
Moseley found her father dressed in a suit on the floor
Moseley's youth was short, abbreviated by her father's suicide when she was a teenager. "My life reads like a sorry true-story magazine," she says.
of the bathroom. He?d shot himself in the head. ?He lived until about midnight that night. Never spoke. Never made any comment. He left one note on his dresser to me asking me to take care of my mother and my sister.?
About two months earlier, her father had lost his job. ?We hadn?t even known that there was a Depression. His salary was just unbelievable for that period of time. And it never did stop until he came home for lunch and went back after lunch (and) they had a note on his desk saying that his services would no longer be needed. That was not uncommon then. And suicide was not uncommon then.
"The day he was buried he got a telegram from the Republic Iron and Steel Co. in Ironton, Ohio, offering him the superintendency. My life reads like a sorry true-story magazine.?
Even though she and her mother didn?t get along well, Moseley took her father?s note seriously. She dropped out of school and she, her mother and sister moved to another house. Her mother worked at a grocery store/delicatessen her father had bought after losing his job. ?I cooked, washed dishes. But, you know, 1 wasn?t unhappy.?
Her mother remarried when Moseley was 25. ?I would never have married had she not married again because of the responsibility my father left me: ?Take care of your mother.?
"When I got older I realized that he shouldn?t have done that to me and it made me mad. Because he knew that when he left my mother and sister in my care that he was putting a yoke around my neck. And he did. And I wore it until my mother got married again.?
But, Moseley said, ?I shook it off and I haven?t worried about it since.?
The love of Moseley?s life was William Jones ?Mose? Moseley. "He came in the business we had and walked up to my mother. He was a shy sort of man. He?s not pushy like I am. He said, 'I'm gonna marry your daughter some day.? And mother thought, 'Well, that nut.? But it happened.?
Shortly after they were married, Moseley?s husband, who was in the ice business, lost his job. ?That was the year that electrical refrigeration came out. I sound like I just sat and made a list of horrible things that can happen to people.?
She and her husband moved to his hometown of Batesville, Miss. He got a job working on dams and Moseley took in washing. They had one son, Tim.
The couple moved to Memphis and her husband got a job at Firestone, where he worked for 28 years. Moseley got a teaching permit and began teaching at Whitehaven High School and, later, at Oakhaven High School. She got her teaching credits and, later, her master?s degree at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis).
Moseley?s sense of humor made her a popular teacher. She didn?t spare the rod, though, particularly if she saw a student making fun of another student.
?I?d march them down to the office and I?d just beat the fire out of ?em. They?d be big old boys, taller than I was, and they?d say, ?Mrs. Moseley, let Mr. Clayton (the principal) whip me.? I said, ?No, I?m not. I?m gonna do it. I don?t want to be denied that privilege.? ?
Moseley?s mother was happy with her second hus-
band, a lawyer for Birmingham Klcctric Co. ?I think she probably loved him more than she loved anyone,? Moseley said. ?She was so difficult, but he seemed to manage. But a client went berserk one day over something. They never did know what. He killed him (her stepfather). He beat him to death on the floor.?
Remembering her father?s note, Moseley brought her mother, who was ill, to live with her in Memphis in the late ?60s. "She didn?t know who I was for four years.?
Moseley used to spend her evenings after school sitting with her mother. ?I was so depressed.?	;
Even though she?d neveil taken any lessons, Moseley began painting. "I found some old stuff at the house. I think it was house paint. I had to have my mind on something else.
"Usually, when I?d sit with her at night I?d dabble, just kind of dabble away and it would develop into something."
She?d never been there, but Bourbon Street in New Orleans was the subject of Moseley?s first painting. ?Tim had been there. He and his wife (stayed) there on their honeymoon and I just kind of visualized from what they told me about their trip.?
Moseley painted on whatever she could find. ?I?d paint on wood or anything. And I even painted on old saws.?
Her subjects were "stories that I know, things that have happened.?
One, with a girl wearing a fringed dress, is titled Flivers, Flappers and Whoopy Doo. ?I won a Charleston contest in a dress like that in 1926 in Birmingham.?
Several of her paintings depict church scenes. Describing one of them, Moseley said, "The minister was talking about how sinful it was to drink and if he had his way all the whiskey, wine and beer would be poured into the river. And then the choir director said, 'Let?s stand and be dismissed by singing Shall We Gather at the River.? ? She used the name of the hymn for the painting.
Moseley?s husband showed her paintings to a man who owned a movie theater in Whitehaven. He took some paintings with him to the theater and sold all of them the first night. "It just started taking off. Then I started realizing maybe I had something really going for me.?
After her mother died, Moseley began taking her paintings to art shows, sales and flea markets.
Her husband retired from Firestone and they moved to Enid Lake in Northeast Mississippi and lived in a tenant shack that once had been at Graceland. Vernon Presley, who was a neighbor when they lived in Whitehaven, gave it to them.
Moseley and Elvis, who liked her work, used to talk on occasion. ?He said, ?When I have spare time, which is rare, I go to Jackson and play at the school for the deaf.? I said, ?Well, Elvis, they can?t hear you.? (He said,) ?But those feet can pat that rhythm out. I can feel those feet.? ?
She painted a picture showing Elvis?s homes in Tupelo and Graceland. She titled it From a Shotgun House to a Mansion on the Hill.
Alice Bingham Gorman, a former Memphian, showed up one day at Moseley?s home to talk about her art.
Gorman held a show and sale of Moseley?s work at her gallery in Overton Square. It was a sellout.
Then another setback: In the spring of 1978, Moseley?s husband died of a heart attack.
Her art, however, continued to draw praise. In 1988, Moseley exhibited her work at Serenity Gallery. People begged her to move to Bay St. Louis. They knew she was living alone on Enid Lake and looking for a place to live. Shortly after, Moseley moved to Bay St. Louis.
She painted her house blue because she wanted people to know she was there. She?s now known for her homemade piiniento cheese and Texas Orange Cake almost as much as for her artwork.
One of Moseley?s paintings shows her skipping out of her flower-filled yard by the picket fence in front of her home. The title is The House is Blue but the Old Lady Ain't.
Moseley?s son, a licensed marriage and family therapist living in Pass Christian, Miss., is buying back her old paintings for a museum of her work he wants to establish in Bay St. Louis.
Lately, Moseley doesn?t have much time to paint. ?I get the tour buses here, 40 people at a time in this house. I make a living widi my prints."
Her art keeps her going. ?Everybody needs a reason to get up in the morning. It?s so simple, but that?s all it takes. You need to get up. So many older people don?t have a reason for getting up.
?I don?t get through any given day. I really don?t. I go to bed every night wishing I?d had time to do more.?
? Michael Donahue: 529-2797
couple work or are re from.
Mail announcements t peal, Anniversaries, The mercial Appeal, 495 U Memphis, Tenn. 38103. ,? phone number must 1 eluded.
For more informatioi 529-2375.
Burbage
Mary and Mike Burb Memphis celebrated 60th anniversary Sep They renewed their vow ing a reception held S( at Ave Maria Nursing ] She is a homemaker. H< tired from the Navy.
Cunningham
Madaline and Billy ningham of Ashland, celebrated their 50th ai sary Friday. A family gat will be held today at th pie?s home. The Cui hams are members of A Baptist Church. Sh> homemaker. He is i from Kimberly-Clark.
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Moseley, Alice Moseley-Masters-the-art-of-life-part2
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