1
00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:14,640
Speaker 1: In the South, we're big fans of parables. There's something

2
00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:18,360
Speaker 1: comforting and knowing how a story will be told, knowing

3
00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:23,279
Speaker 1: the paths and the endings of all the characters. Family

4
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:28,120
Speaker 1: stories aren't all that different. With each telling, the beats

5
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 1: of the story get etched into the family history. But

6
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:38,959
Speaker 1: what about when someone decides to buck tradition. What if

7
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,080
Speaker 1: someone wants to tell one of those stories differently.

8
00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:45,880
Speaker 2: Dunstan was a blacksmith and he was in his blacksmith

9
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,680
Speaker 2: shop and write at closing time, an old man shows

10
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:51,920
Speaker 2: up at his shop and says, can you make me

11
00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:56,480
Speaker 2: a chalice? So he starts pounding away at his anville,

12
00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:00,640
Speaker 2: and as he's doing that, he sees this old man,

13
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 2: out of the corner of his eyes, start to rapidly

14
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 2: change form. And he's an old man. Now he's a

15
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:08,440
Speaker 2: young girl. Now he's an old man again. Now he's

16
00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,120
Speaker 2: a beautiful woman. Now he's a young boy. And he

17
00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:16,520
Speaker 2: knows instantly that that's the devil. And so he while

18
00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:19,480
Speaker 2: he's hammering away, he just sort of without missing a beat,

19
00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:22,400
Speaker 2: he puts his tongs into the furnace, and then when

20
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 2: he sees them get red hot, he grabs them and

21
00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:27,560
Speaker 2: then grabs the devil by the nose with the tongs,

22
00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:30,480
Speaker 2: who then instantly changes back into an old man and

23
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:33,080
Speaker 2: runs out of the blacksmith shop, saying, the blacksmith just

24
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:33,840
Speaker 2: attack me.

25
00:01:37,080 --> 00:01:39,440
Speaker 1: I'm hearing the story of Dunstan and the Devil from

26
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,080
Speaker 1: Noah Saderstrom. He's the artist whose paintings about his great

27
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,360
Speaker 1: grandfather were the focus of a major show at the

28
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:48,640
Speaker 1: Mississippi Museum of Art. It's a Saturday in April, the

29
00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:52,520
Speaker 1: morning after the show's opening. He's energetic today as he

30
00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:56,120
Speaker 1: walks me through his work, one hundred and eighty three

31
00:01:56,120 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: canvases that tell the story of his great grandfather, doctor

32
00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,080
Speaker 1: David L. Smith. We're talking about Dunstan because the parable

33
00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:07,640
Speaker 1: also makes an appearance in one of these paintings. Right

34
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,400
Speaker 1: there in the center, there are two men in a tussle.

35
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 1: One goes to the other's face with a red hot

36
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:17,120
Speaker 1: pair of tongs. And Noah's story of Dunstan. The saint

37
00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:20,480
Speaker 1: tangles with the devil and the experience puts him at

38
00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:24,040
Speaker 1: odds with his community. And that sounded like a story

39
00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,720
Speaker 1: he was familiar with, that of doctor Smith, the one

40
00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:31,200
Speaker 1: whose own perception of reality was so different from his

41
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:34,680
Speaker 1: communities that he had to be sent away to the

42
00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:36,040
Speaker 1: Mississippi State Asylum.

43
00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:40,400
Speaker 2: That story, next to the Doctor Smith's story, that seems

44
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:42,920
Speaker 2: like a problem that Dunstan was having it.

45
00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of Saint Dunstan before Noah, but after

46
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: the opening I started seeing references to him everywhere, including

47
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:53,720
Speaker 1: on the back of a bottle of whiskey that was

48
00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:59,800
Speaker 1: fire spiced. Get it. But the story there and another

49
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:05,240
Speaker 1: is a little different. In those versions, doubt doesn't seem

50
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 1: to play as big a role. The townspeople are glad

51
00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,239
Speaker 1: he ran the devil out. That's the thing with stories.

52
00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:16,840
Speaker 1: The takeaway is up for interpretation. At a certain point,

53
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:19,840
Speaker 1: the stories become more a product of the person telling

54
00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:24,400
Speaker 1: them than the people in them. Of course, not everything

55
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: that happens becomes a story. Sometimes a thing is too

56
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:31,400
Speaker 1: mundane to even remember, and sometimes it's so painful that

57
00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 1: generation after generation works to bury it. So what happens

58
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:41,840
Speaker 1: when one of those generations decides to unearth that story.

59
00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:49,080
Speaker 1: I'm Larison Campbell and this is under Yazoo Clay A

60
00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 1: quick heads up. This episode contains mentions of sexual assault.

61
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,600
Speaker 1: Noah is the first person to admit if it were

62
00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 1: up to certain members of his face family, and not

63
00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,760
Speaker 1: the curators of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the show

64
00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:08,640
Speaker 1: would never have gone up. Noah's closest link to his

65
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:11,720
Speaker 1: great grandfather, that is, the only person he ever met

66
00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:16,040
Speaker 1: who actually knew doctor Smith was his own grandmother, Margaret,

67
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,000
Speaker 1: who died in twenty fourteen. She was doctor Smith's oldest child.

68
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:23,240
Speaker 2: The grandmother that I knew would be absolutely horrified that

69
00:04:23,279 --> 00:04:24,960
Speaker 2: we were even having this conversation.

70
00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:29,359
Speaker 3: I think she'd be really torn. And she loved Noah

71
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:34,520
Speaker 3: so much. She surrounded her room in the assisted living

72
00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:39,479
Speaker 3: facility with Noah's paintings on every wall, and yet the

73
00:04:39,640 --> 00:04:43,159
Speaker 3: very idea that this whole story is public. I don't

74
00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:48,159
Speaker 3: know if she could have studied. I'm Anna Sadistrom. I'm

75
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:52,920
Speaker 3: the mother of the artist and the granddaughter of the

76
00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 3: person of interest here, doctor Smith.

77
00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 1: Anna's mother, Margaret, was doctor Smith's daughter. He was sent

78
00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:01,880
Speaker 1: to the asylum when Margaret was still a little girl.

79
00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: His insanity trial was a big deal. Newspapers covered it,

80
00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:10,760
Speaker 1: but Anna knew none of this because her family decided

81
00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: to never speak of him again.

82
00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 3: I don't remember at what age I realized that I

83
00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:21,000
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about my grandfather, because she would talk

84
00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:24,880
Speaker 3: about her mother quite a bit. She would tell me about,

85
00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:27,200
Speaker 3: you know, what she did, and how they went to

86
00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:30,320
Speaker 3: movies together, and how she made her clothes and everything.

87
00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:34,360
Speaker 3: She never mentioned her father. And when I asked about

88
00:05:34,640 --> 00:05:38,239
Speaker 3: my grandfather, she said he lost his memory and went away,

89
00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,160
Speaker 3: and so I thought, maybe somebody will direct him back

90
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:43,920
Speaker 3: home sometime.

91
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,360
Speaker 1: I don't know if lost his memory is an old

92
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:51,119
Speaker 1: euphemism for mental illness, Lord knows the South has lots

93
00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:55,599
Speaker 1: of those. But there's a heartbreaking irony here. The family's

94
00:05:55,640 --> 00:06:00,520
Speaker 1: explanation for doctor Smith's absence, for their silence, is that

95
00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 1: he's the one who doesn't remember them, which is all

96
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:08,480
Speaker 1: to say that there was something incredibly moving about this show,

97
00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:13,240
Speaker 1: about seeing a man who'd been intentionally erased be given

98
00:06:13,279 --> 00:06:19,640
Speaker 1: the floor, or rather the walls. Noah's show had taken

99
00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:22,440
Speaker 1: over more than a third of the museum's square footage.

100
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 1: There's the one hundred and twenty two linear feet of

101
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,600
Speaker 1: panoramic painting, yes, but there was also a giant hallway

102
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:33,920
Speaker 1: lined with artifacts from doctor Smith's life, photos, letters he'd

103
00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:37,600
Speaker 1: exchanged with his wife Ethel, even the beat up leather

104
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:42,680
Speaker 1: satchel he'd used to carry his optometry supplies and a

105
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:47,320
Speaker 1: pair of his signature round wireframed spectacles, not unlike the

106
00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:51,920
Speaker 1: ones Noah's got on off the hallway of Doctor Smith's artifacts.

107
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:55,280
Speaker 1: The museum was airing a short documentary about Noah's research

108
00:06:55,320 --> 00:06:58,360
Speaker 1: and process, and over the course of a week, they

109
00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:01,599
Speaker 1: hosted a series of panel discussions that went beyond Noah

110
00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:05,400
Speaker 1: and Doctor Smith. Topics range from the Asylum Hill project

111
00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:11,760
Speaker 1: to archival ethics to ideas about memory and generational trauma.

112
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:13,760
Speaker 1: You know when a little kid tries to keep a

113
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,600
Speaker 1: secret and finally they're allowed to blurt it out and

114
00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:21,440
Speaker 1: the words just don't stop. It felt like that, like

115
00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:25,720
Speaker 1: an easing of conscience for this whole community. So what

116
00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:29,120
Speaker 1: compelled Noah to spend years telling the story of a

117
00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:33,240
Speaker 1: man he was always told never to mention? To understand

118
00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:35,600
Speaker 1: that we're going to have to skip twenty five years

119
00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:41,200
Speaker 1: back and a whole continent away. Noah and I started

120
00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 1: talking about his show almost a year before it went up.

121
00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:47,000
Speaker 1: We'd go back and forth, his telling me how the

122
00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:50,280
Speaker 1: painting was going, my prying about any new findings he

123
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,720
Speaker 1: had about Doctor Smith. But in one of our talks

124
00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:56,400
Speaker 1: he let me in on a part of his own story,

125
00:07:56,840 --> 00:08:03,320
Speaker 1: one that changed everything. It's two thousand and one. Noah's

126
00:08:03,320 --> 00:08:06,320
Speaker 1: in a high level graduate program at the Glasgow School

127
00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:09,960
Speaker 1: of Art in Scotland. He was married and it wasn't

128
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:15,280
Speaker 1: going well. It's in this moment of intense stress that

129
00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:18,720
Speaker 1: he wakes up one night in the pitch black to

130
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:20,400
Speaker 1: a horrible realization.

131
00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:26,880
Speaker 2: All of my memories felt like they were planted and fake,

132
00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:31,560
Speaker 2: and that I hadn't existed until that moment, and everyone

133
00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:34,840
Speaker 2: else was convinced that my memories were real, that I

134
00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 2: was the only one who knew that they were not.

135
00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 2: I mean, it was deeply, deeply frightening, and it lasted

136
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:43,560
Speaker 2: for much longer than I would have wanted it to.

137
00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:49,720
Speaker 1: For nearly six months. This was his everyday reality, a

138
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:52,840
Speaker 1: kind of mental break. He was experiencing. Has a diagnosis,

139
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:55,160
Speaker 1: the personalization disorder.

140
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,240
Speaker 2: It was NonStop. It wasn't like I'm having this weird

141
00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:02,600
Speaker 2: feeling like oh, I just woke up into reality that

142
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:08,000
Speaker 2: I realized I'm not real and my memories aren't real.

143
00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:12,400
Speaker 2: They've been They've been crafted and presented to my brain

144
00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:13,400
Speaker 2: as real, but they're not.

145
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:17,079
Speaker 1: He took a leave from his painting program and went

146
00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:20,840
Speaker 1: home to his parents. He started thumbing through old family

147
00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:25,720
Speaker 1: photo albums, hoping they'd trigger a reconnection between his memories

148
00:09:26,559 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 1: and reality. After a while, he started to paint the photos,

149
00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:36,280
Speaker 1: repossessing them in a way. It was in the midst

150
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:40,440
Speaker 1: of all this when his great grandfather's absence really struck him.

151
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 2: When I was having my breakdown in two thousand and one,

152
00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:51,240
Speaker 2: if I had the full context of his experience, it's

153
00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:52,840
Speaker 2: hard to say I would have been more afraid, because

154
00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:54,520
Speaker 2: I don't think I could have been more afraid than

155
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,600
Speaker 2: I was. It would have been it would have given

156
00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:00,360
Speaker 2: me something to kind of puld onto, you know, instead

157
00:10:00,360 --> 00:10:03,839
Speaker 2: of like either your normal or there's the abyss. There's

158
00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 2: like normal people and then there's the abyss. Whereas following

159
00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:13,800
Speaker 2: doctor Smith's life, he enters the Old Asylum in nineteen

160
00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:17,640
Speaker 2: twenty five and he lives for forty years beyond that,

161
00:10:18,280 --> 00:10:19,200
Speaker 2: and he wasn't.

162
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:22,320
Speaker 1: In the Abyss when he got started on this project,

163
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:25,360
Speaker 1: Noah didn't have much to go on. It's not easy

164
00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 1: to dig up a story that's meant to be forgotten,

165
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:32,439
Speaker 1: a story that more than one person has taken pains

166
00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:37,240
Speaker 1: to bury. But some pieces had survived. His great grandmother,

167
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:41,520
Speaker 1: Ethel had saved a wooden box. Inside was nearly every

168
00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 1: letter she'd written during the early years of her marriage

169
00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:45,400
Speaker 1: to doctor Smith.

170
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,360
Speaker 2: I know what she had for lunch every day that year.

171
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:52,680
Speaker 2: You know every movie she saw, every interaction she had

172
00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:55,800
Speaker 2: with her parents. It's all very like young family.

173
00:10:56,679 --> 00:10:59,160
Speaker 1: If doctor Smith and Ethel kept in touch after he

174
00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:03,680
Speaker 1: went into the asside, she didn't save those letters. So

175
00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:08,199
Speaker 1: Noah turned to a different repository of memory, the state Archives.

176
00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:13,839
Speaker 2: I found a doctor Smith's name in the ledger book

177
00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:18,400
Speaker 2: from the Old Asylum, which was this giant leatherbound book

178
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,440
Speaker 2: that said Mississippi and Saint Hospital B on the spine.

179
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:27,880
Speaker 1: Finally confirmation, but not much else. Fortunately that was about

180
00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:32,520
Speaker 1: to change. At Noah's next stop, a downtown gallery, a

181
00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,240
Speaker 1: man buying a painting overheard him telling his great grandfather's

182
00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:43,319
Speaker 1: story and introduced himself. It was Stephen Parks, the state librarian. Okay,

183
00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:47,000
Speaker 1: small cities have big perks, and so a couple.

184
00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 2: Of weeks later, I'm back in Nashville and I get

185
00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,520
Speaker 2: a text from Stephen and saying start sending you stuff.

186
00:11:53,160 --> 00:11:59,200
Speaker 1: And I was show advertisements for doctor Smith's optician practice, meeting,

187
00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,120
Speaker 1: notes from the State Board of Opticians, where doctor Smith

188
00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:06,520
Speaker 1: held a seat, newspaper articles about his engagement, his practice,

189
00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:12,480
Speaker 1: and later his very public breakdown. With every document, Noah

190
00:12:12,559 --> 00:12:16,800
Speaker 1: became more inspired. A picture of a man was taking

191
00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 1: shape in his head, and then on canvas. He began

192
00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:26,280
Speaker 1: painting vignettes of what he read. But as much as

193
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:30,160
Speaker 1: this work has brought doctor Smith back to life, I'm

194
00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:34,160
Speaker 1: not sure it's brought him back into the family. There's

195
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,520
Speaker 1: a formality in the way that Noah talks about him.

196
00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:38,920
Speaker 1: Why do you refer to him as doctor Smith.

197
00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:44,559
Speaker 2: Uh, that's a good question one that like, I started

198
00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:48,640
Speaker 2: referring to him as doctor Smith because that's what all

199
00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:55,480
Speaker 2: of his optometry advertisements referred to him as. But I

200
00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:59,160
Speaker 2: didn't realize at the beginning that he referred to himself

201
00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:02,959
Speaker 2: as doctor Smith. Smith is such a common name, and

202
00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,800
Speaker 2: he'd just get lost in like doctor Smith, there's no

203
00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:10,040
Speaker 2: first name, you know, it's just doctor and Smith. He

204
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,800
Speaker 2: became a kind of iconic figure in my imagination from

205
00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:14,240
Speaker 2: his name.

206
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,360
Speaker 1: Doctor Smith's not a paupa or even grandfather. Familial names

207
00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:23,719
Speaker 1: implied that their owner is just that a member of

208
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:27,720
Speaker 1: the family. Someone had pruned his branch from the family tree.

209
00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:32,439
Speaker 3: That image of a blackboard, or you erase everything on

210
00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:36,240
Speaker 3: the blackboard with the little bits of information left. I

211
00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:40,080
Speaker 3: feel like that's what I got from my mother growing up.

212
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:44,800
Speaker 1: You remember Noah's mom, Anna. She'd learned early on that

213
00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:48,920
Speaker 1: her own mother, Margaret, didn't like to talk about Anna's grandfather.

214
00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:54,480
Speaker 3: I would just say a silence, absence, this is just

215
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:58,360
Speaker 3: not where we go. And then when I got older

216
00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:02,760
Speaker 3: and added started ask in a little deeper questions, she

217
00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:06,719
Speaker 3: would shut down right away. And if I got a

218
00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:10,480
Speaker 3: little too insistent, she would get either snappish or she

219
00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:14,439
Speaker 3: would tear up and say, I'm not gonna talk about it.

220
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:17,800
Speaker 1: Anna tried to figure things out anyway.

221
00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:21,960
Speaker 3: My mother said that anytime she and her sister were

222
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:28,320
Speaker 3: together and their voices dropped, I'd show up. But if

223
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:30,040
Speaker 3: there was gonna be a good story, they were gonna

224
00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:31,160
Speaker 3: lower their voices.

225
00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:35,800
Speaker 1: And so for Noah, it's not just about understanding this man,

226
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:41,080
Speaker 1: but about understanding just why exactly his family worked so

227
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:45,320
Speaker 1: hard to erase him. There was shame about mental illness,

228
00:14:46,640 --> 00:15:04,320
Speaker 1: but was that the whole story? That afternoon at the museum,

229
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:09,080
Speaker 1: one of the Southeast legendary spring thunderstorms rolled in as

230
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:11,280
Speaker 1: Noah walked me through his paintings. We'll start of the

231
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:14,440
Speaker 1: first in the first section of the panels.

232
00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:22,120
Speaker 2: It starts with a shadow of an unknown figure, which

233
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:25,880
Speaker 2: may be me or maybe Doctor Smith himself, or it

234
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:28,680
Speaker 2: could be Doctor Smith's father is on the other side

235
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:31,080
Speaker 2: of the wall of the room where doctor Smith is

236
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:37,600
Speaker 2: being born. There's a vertical diptych kind of design. Motifs

237
00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:38,760
Speaker 2: are basically throughout.

238
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:42,400
Speaker 1: In many ways, it's a visual biography of doctor Smith's

239
00:15:42,440 --> 00:15:47,200
Speaker 1: life from birth to burial. Doctor Smith was raised in

240
00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:50,760
Speaker 1: Louisiana by a single mother, and he put himself through

241
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:55,360
Speaker 1: optometry school. One of doctor Smith's earliest patients was a

242
00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:59,520
Speaker 1: man named Gerard Brandon, a lawyer who loomed large in

243
00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: the Natchet social scene. More importantly, Gerard had a beautiful daughter, Ethel.

244
00:16:05,760 --> 00:16:11,040
Speaker 2: He met Ethel Brandon, I believe because he was making

245
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:15,760
Speaker 2: glasses for her father, and they pretty quickly started dating

246
00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:17,840
Speaker 2: and they were married the following year.

247
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:21,920
Speaker 1: The young couple moved up the river to Vicksburg. They

248
00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:24,960
Speaker 1: were happy. These were the years when Ethel would write

249
00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:27,680
Speaker 1: to her family about how she and her husband teased

250
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:31,240
Speaker 1: each other, but even in the rosy glow of young love.

251
00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:35,960
Speaker 1: Noah's great grandfather may have had his own secrets that

252
00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:37,040
Speaker 1: he kept from his wife.

253
00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:40,960
Speaker 2: He referred to having audio hallucinations for his whole life

254
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 2: and that they never bothered him, but they were always

255
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:47,280
Speaker 2: there and very rarely did they make him do something

256
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:49,840
Speaker 2: he didn't want to do. But he could have been

257
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 2: a fully functioning professional optometrist while being schizophrenic at the

258
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:54,160
Speaker 2: same time.

259
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 1: For years, being a fully functioning professional optometrist looked a

260
00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:02,480
Speaker 1: little different. In the South of the nineteen twenties, there

261
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,280
Speaker 1: wasn't quite enough business for a brick and mortar shop,

262
00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:08,040
Speaker 1: so doctor Smith took his services on the road.

263
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:12,719
Speaker 2: While all this is going on and he's actively having delusions,

264
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:17,920
Speaker 2: he starts to develop this very elaborate optical truck that,

265
00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:23,480
Speaker 2: by all accounts was a very highly functioning invention. They

266
00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:26,120
Speaker 2: check all the eyes for free, and then if only

267
00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:28,760
Speaker 2: if somebody needed glasses, he would be able to grind

268
00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:31,320
Speaker 2: the lenses on the spot. Do you know, fit the

269
00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:34,679
Speaker 2: glasses and everything, which would have been i mean, driving

270
00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:38,520
Speaker 2: around rural Mississippi in that in the nineteen twenties. You know,

271
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:41,400
Speaker 2: it's hard to imagine.

272
00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:44,000
Speaker 1: It was cutting edge, the talk of the town wherever

273
00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:48,040
Speaker 1: he went. He even got it patented. Doctor Smith and

274
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:51,320
Speaker 1: Ethel had four kids. He might have been away much

275
00:17:51,359 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 1: of the time, but it was clear as kids loved

276
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:58,480
Speaker 1: him and he loved them. Noah's mother told us a

277
00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:01,760
Speaker 1: story about how her own Margaret, kept a pair of

278
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:05,080
Speaker 1: glasses he'd made for her as a child. She didn't

279
00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 1: need them, she just liked them, and so he made

280
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:13,480
Speaker 1: them for her. Noah's work devotes a good bit of

281
00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:17,159
Speaker 1: square footage to this period of doctor Smith's life, his

282
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:22,880
Speaker 1: optometry truck, rural Mississippi and Louisiana images of a growing family.

283
00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:26,359
Speaker 1: In one part, he stands in a white shirt and vest,

284
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:30,879
Speaker 1: facing left towards his past, as the reflection of the

285
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:35,360
Speaker 1: sun makes his glasses opaque. In the distance behind him

286
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,520
Speaker 1: a small child, a carriage, and a loose, barely discernible

287
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 1: sketch resembling a woman in the story of doctor Smith's life,

288
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,040
Speaker 1: As his madness takes up more and more of the foreground,

289
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:54,879
Speaker 1: something someone fades to the back his family, So.

290
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 2: Then the timeline splits again, and then you've got Margaret,

291
00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:02,040
Speaker 2: my grandmother, and Ethel back on the top. And then

292
00:19:02,119 --> 00:19:03,880
Speaker 2: that's when he enters the old Asylum.

293
00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:07,159
Speaker 1: At this point, a gaggle of museum goers had started

294
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,080
Speaker 1: trailing behind us, listening. Noah pointed to a square near

295
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 1: the top. Everyone leaned in, hands behind their back, doing

296
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:19,360
Speaker 1: that polite museum squint. The image he pointed out as small. Well,

297
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:23,120
Speaker 1: in the context of this massive painting, just one two

298
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:26,439
Speaker 1: by two foot square. There's a neat white house.

299
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,640
Speaker 2: According to one of the only stories that I knew

300
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:35,200
Speaker 2: growing up, grandmother and them were living in Shreveport, destitute.

301
00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:41,760
Speaker 2: Doctor Smith was not around at all, totally lost in psychosis.

302
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:44,960
Speaker 2: Ethel and the kids there were four kids at this point,

303
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 2: the youngest being an infant. We're all sitting in poverty

304
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:52,399
Speaker 2: in a house with no food, no resources, nothing.

305
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:56,280
Speaker 1: After Noah's walked through, my producer and I tucked ourselves

306
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,360
Speaker 1: away in a museum office with Noah, his sister Jessica,

307
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 1: and his mom Anna. Remember this project wasn't just academic.

308
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:10,200
Speaker 1: This was Noah's great grandfather, a man whose absence festered

309
00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:14,400
Speaker 1: in the family he left behind, especially for Noah's grandmother.

310
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:17,040
Speaker 1: Anna's mother Margaret, and.

311
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:21,440
Speaker 3: She's the only one of their four children who had

312
00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:24,359
Speaker 3: an active memory of her father. But my mother was

313
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:28,960
Speaker 3: seven when it happened, and she said she spent the

314
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:32,160
Speaker 3: next several years sitting on the brick wall out front,

315
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 3: waiting for her father to come get her, because nobody

316
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:41,639
Speaker 3: told her that he wasn't going to come. And I

317
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 3: think she carried the trauma of his loss throughout her life.

318
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 1: After doctor Smith's breakdown, his wife and children didn't stay

319
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:55,359
Speaker 1: in that neat white house. His father in law, Gerard,

320
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:59,480
Speaker 1: arrived and wisked the family back home to Natchez. Gerard's

321
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 1: home was a quiet one. That Victorian sensibility of children

322
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 1: should be seen and not heard applied to everyone. A

323
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 1: house of decorum was in some ways the perfect antidote

324
00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:15,480
Speaker 1: to the chaotic last years with doctor Smith. But a

325
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:19,080
Speaker 1: house of decorum isn't a place where you could ask questions.

326
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: For the first year after doctor Smith was gone, a

327
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 1: photograph of him remained on the mantle at her grandparents.

328
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:31,280
Speaker 1: Margaret often stared at it. It was all she had

329
00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:31,920
Speaker 1: of her dad.

330
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,640
Speaker 2: She was caught staring at his photograph on the mantle,

331
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:38,840
Speaker 2: and the next day it was gone.

332
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: Margaret grew up had children of her own. Gerard Brandon's

333
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:50,640
Speaker 1: decorum no outbursts, no questions, no curiosity, found a place

334
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: in her home with her children. Gerard took his place

335
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 1: as a titan, and the family mythos. Here's Anna again,

336
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 1: Noah's mother. I was very young.

337
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,639
Speaker 3: I sort of had him confused with God. You know,

338
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 3: he was the sweet old man who had all the power.

339
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 3: I never saw him angry. I never heard him say

340
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,680
Speaker 3: raise a voice or say anything unkind.

341
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 1: But she never saw joy either, no outburst of any kind.

342
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:21,879
Speaker 1: In fact, her mother, Margaret, saw.

343
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:30,439
Speaker 2: To that composure was of absolute value. Poise, elegance, and properness.

344
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:34,479
Speaker 4: Grandmother was a quintessential Southern bell in my memory.

345
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:39,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, she had an elegance and a presence about her.

346
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 3: She was a beautiful woman, and when she entered a room,

347
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 3: everybody was aware of it. She was.

348
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:49,439
Speaker 5: A power source in.

349
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 4: My life, and yet she wasn't. You didn't want to

350
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 4: be judged by that, that power source.

351
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 1: For a family interested less in the real world than

352
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 1: in their own created reality, perhaps there was no better

353
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 1: community than Natchez, Mississippi. This small town of a few

354
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 1: thousand sits on a bluff overlooking the river. Before the

355
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: Civil War, it was home to more millionaires per capita

356
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 1: than any other in the United States, because it was

357
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: also home to the country's second largest slave market. Many

358
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 1: of those grand homes still stand, although the area is

359
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: now among the poorest in the country. Regardless of present circumstances,

360
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:38,640
Speaker 1: this ideal of Confederate glory still shapes the way residents talk.

361
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: The writer Richard Grant has this quote in Natches, you

362
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: only use the word home if it's antebellum. If your

363
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: house was built after the Civil War, it's trashy to

364
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: call it a home. Still, even in Natches, people build

365
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: new houses. They buck tradition. There were times Noah's grandmother

366
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: let her tried and true composure slide, but it was

367
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: so rare. Both he and his sister Jessica remember each one.

368
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 4: I remember you telling me about it, do you.

369
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

370
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 4: I was in high school and it seemed like, wow,

371
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 4: it was such a mystery in the family. I had

372
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:22,679
Speaker 4: no idea.

373
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 5: And then not long after I asked grandmother about her father,

374
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 5: and I said, some didn't like I don't tell me

375
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 5: about your father.

376
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 4: And grandmother looked surprised, and she said he was an optometrist,

377
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 4: and then her eyes filled up with tears, and then

378
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 4: everything shut down, and then it was just back to

379
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 4: the silence.

380
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 2: Exactly what happened when I asked her that they tell

381
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 2: me about him? What can you say about him? He

382
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 2: was an optometrist. Immediately tears just filling up, and then

383
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 2: just kind of silence while she turned the page and

384
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: started talking about something else. And that instant, involuntary well

385
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 2: of emotion after ninety years, she was seven when he left,

386
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 2: and she was in her nineties when this happened, and

387
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 2: that being the only trigger that I had ever seen

388
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 2: of that kind of emotion, completely instant and involuntary, was

389
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 2: such a sign that there's so much there un processed,

390
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: that she lived with for her whole life, and that

391
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 2: she unwillingly not meaning to, was teaching us like, this

392
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 2: is what we do, your.

393
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 5: Places deep down inside you, and if you violate that,

394
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 5: you're going to feel bad about yourself.

395
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where the shame comes in. You just had

396
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 2: an emotional outburst. I mean my suspicion there is. The

397
00:25:55,880 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 2: silence is the response to the shame, and it's so

398
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 2: much padding. You don't ever get the shame. The shame

399
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 2: doesn't make it to the surface. We don't see the shame,

400
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: but we see the effects of the shame, and it.

401
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 5: Gets buried down so deep that any kind of scratch

402
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 5: of the surface bubbles up this uncontrollable emotional response that.

403
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 4: Then has to be tamped down quick.

404
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then everybody just stopped talking about it because

405
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 5: something got awkward.

406
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 4: So back to the silence.

407
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: You can hear even in how these three talk to

408
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: one another. They've put in the work to build relationships

409
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: founded on sincerity and honesty, not shame and silence. But

410
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: anyone with a family nose, it's hard to break patterns,

411
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: even when you want to. The thing is, it wasn't

412
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: just Noah's breakdown that harkened back to his great grandfather's generation.

413
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: It's how he talked about it, or how he didn't.

414
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: Noah's breakdown was in two thousand and one, and his grandmother, Margaret,

415
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: lived until twenty fourteen.

416
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 2: The episode of depersonalization I had and not being able

417
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 2: to know what the where I am in reality was

418
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 2: so horrifying to me and night marish, and I could

419
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: not There was no way out of it, and no

420
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 2: one else seemed to be able to tell.

421
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: How may I ask? How she responded?

422
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 4: I'm sure we never took no.

423
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 2: She never knew. She never knew that I barely talked

424
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:47,640
Speaker 2: to them about it. I don't know that I really

425
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 2: talked to everything about.

426
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 4: It, know about it until the New York Times, until

427
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 4: I tell you, we have broken this pattern.

428
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: For more than two decades now. His only sibling didn't know.

429
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,160
Speaker 1: He spent six months unsure if his life was even real.

430
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: The tight lipt ethos ran so deep that Noah didn't

431
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: even realize he was carrying it out.

432
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was doing that to myself until

433
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: I let doctor Smith out of the Genie bottle. And

434
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 2: then the only way to do that was to like

435
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 2: be totally open and honest. And then all of a sudden,

436
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,120
Speaker 2: it's like, wait a minute, I've got this thing that's

437
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 2: now out that I've been trying to keep to it.

438
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that I was doing that. Not

439
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 2: that I wasn't talking about it because I was ashamed

440
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 2: of it, but I was afraid that if I talked

441
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 2: about it, I would call it back into my life

442
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 2: like a specter, like a monster, which you know, is

443
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 2: maybe more what grandmother was experiencing, not the shame, but

444
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 2: the like if I say his name, the monster is

445
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 2: going to come back to my life.

446
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 3: I'm going to experience all that pain all over again.

447
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 2: And when I still when that occurred to me and

448
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: I started talking about it out loud and thinking about it,

449
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: the amount of energy that it took to hold down

450
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: stuff requires not just the energy of holding it down,

451
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 2: but it requires this whole system of holding all these

452
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 2: other things in place to make sure that you don't

453
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 2: feel this or that or you know. And now everybody

454
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: has to remain calm and not talk about anything because

455
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 2: you don't know where if it's going to start to

456
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 2: blow out, and then you're going to lose control of everything.

457
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 1: Noah's grandmother, Margaret, spent that energy, kept that tight hold

458
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: for better or worse, all her life. Her family thinks

459
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: Noah's exhibit would have caused her a world of conflict.

460
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: If she'd love to see it, maybe there's a way

461
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: it could have offered solace for her too.

462
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 4: And this is her shawl.

463
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 3: I've brought it with me for the weekend to have

464
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 3: her here in hopes that there's some healing for her

465
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 3: in it somewhere, because I think it was a trauma

466
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 3: she took she head through her whole life and I'm sorry,

467
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 3: and I wish that she had had a different relationship

468
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 3: with this story.

469
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: Stephen King has this great quote, nothing is so frightening

470
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: as what's behind the closed door. It reminds me of

471
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: what Noah was saying about his breakdown, that maybe if

472
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: he'd known more about his great grandfather, he would have

473
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: been less afraid for himself. No one worries about monsters

474
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: in a brightly lit room. And then two weeks before

475
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: the show went up, just as Noah was shipping paintings

476
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: from his Nashville studio down to the museum in Jackson,

477
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: someone cut on the lights, so to speak.

478
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 2: Probably like seven tenths of this painting exists of the

479
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 2: details that were known until he entered state custody, and

480
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 2: then it goes dark, which is another forty years of

481
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 2: his life. And it took about seven years to find

482
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 2: all that. But then just last week, as medical records emerge,

483
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 2: that's going to give life to that whole rest of

484
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 2: his life, which is more than half of his existence.

485
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 2: He doesn't have to be a saintly character, you do.

486
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, and so you know, I'm

487
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 2: not absolving him the whole things, but you don't have

488
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 2: to be absolved the whole thing. You know, we can't

489
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 2: be the requirement in life.

490
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: That's next on under Yazuclay. The largest art museum in

491
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: the state, the Mississippi Museum of Art connects Mississippi to

492
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: the world and the power of art to the power

493
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: of community. Located in downtown Jackson, the museum's permanent collection

494
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: is free to the public. National and international exhibitions rotate

495
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: throughout the year, allowing visitors to experience works from around

496
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: the world. The gardens at Expansive Lawn at the Mississippi

497
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: Museum of Art are home to art installations and a

498
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: variety of events for all ages. Plan your visit today

499
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: at MS Museum Art dot org. That's MS Museum Art

500
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: dot org. Noah's family story is in many ways a

501
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: classic Southern situation, a white, well to do family working

502
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: overtime to hide their secrets. His transgression is against his

503
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: family's unspoken agreement this.

504
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 5: Is not where we go.

505
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: But there's another side to the classic Southern coin, another

506
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: implicit agreement to avoid the unspeakable. Doctor Elizabeth West is

507
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: a professor of English and Africana Studies at Georgia State University.

508
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: For her, the broken branch on the family tree was

509
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: her own grandfather. In this case, he'd removed himself. He

510
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: left the family when her mom was growing up. But

511
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: the reason for this went even further back in the

512
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: family history to her grandfather's uncle.

513
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 6: Hillman Human revealed a history of my grandfather that I

514
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 6: had I had no knowledge of. There was a very

515
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 6: tense relationship between my grandfather and his ten children.

516
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: The generations before that weren't much clearer. A few years ago,

517
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: she took the ancestry records her aunt had mapped out

518
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: by hand and began to digitize them, and the reason

519
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: her family didn't talk about its history became clear.

520
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 6: Once it got past my grandfather's father, I was like, Wow,

521
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 6: these people were enslaved, and I just can't believe that.

522
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 6: I didn't think about it ever until that point, you know.

523
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 6: I mean, you talk about it in the abstract, But

524
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 6: once you put a name on a piece of paper

525
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 6: and you realize you're connected to that name and that

526
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 6: name is connected to this history, then you just you know,

527
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 6: then you're in.

528
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 1: And she learned something else. Her great great uncle, Hillman

529
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: Cistrunk died in a different kind of confinement the Mississippi

530
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:27,800
Speaker 1: State Asylum.

531
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 6: Actually, I had no knowledge of him up until about

532
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 6: I don't know, five years ago.

533
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: Through careful interrogation of historical records, tax filings, census interviews,

534
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: doctor West filled in the picture of Hillman's Cistrunks life.

535
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 1: He was born in Georgia into slavery in the mid

536
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties. The man who'd enslaved Hillman moved the whole

537
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: operation to Mississippi and that's where they stayed as the

538
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: Civil War raged on. Once the word ended and the

539
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation finally was put into effect, Hillman and his

540
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: family were free, so they settled near where they'd been

541
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: and what followed was an incredible tale of community resilience

542
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: and grit.

543
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:25,760
Speaker 6: He and my direct ancestor, Shadrick, who was his brother,

544
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 6: they the family farmed in the immediate aftermath of the war,

545
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 6: and right at the close of reconstruction, they actually bought

546
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 6: land and they worked that land for not quite twenty years,

547
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 6: because I think it was around nineteen hundred or a

548
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 6: little before when they paid off the mortgage on the

549
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 6: land and owned it outright.

550
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: These were two land owning black men in the post

551
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: war South life was not easy.

552
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,439
Speaker 6: It was not typical blacks in the aftermath of the war.

553
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 6: Most of them ended up in a system that was

554
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 6: not very different from slavery. They ended up leasing their

555
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 6: labor to white farmers. So Human and Shadwick were an

556
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 6: anomaly in that sense.

557
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 1: Holding onto their land wasn't easy either. Legitimate support systems

558
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: were for white farmers.

559
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 6: Hillman and his brother Shadwick had had dealings with this

560
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 6: pretty wealthy person in the area. If he didn't have

561
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 6: a brig building, he'd probably be called a loan shark.

562
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 6: But you know, loan sharks with big buildings are called businessmen.

563
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 6: And you look at the records and you see the

564
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 6: possessions that they are essentially laying on the table to

565
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 6: be able to make this loan for yet another year.

566
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 6: You know, a cow named Bessie. It's comparable to howk

567
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:08,439
Speaker 6: in your car, And so it's just this grind year

568
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 6: after year.

569
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: There was the grind, but doctor West could clearly see

570
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: for Hillman and his family his community, there was also

571
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: the striving for more.

572
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 6: The record showed this concerted commitment to people in the

573
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 6: community to learn to read and write. And then you

574
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 6: see the records of parents and then people like Hillmen

575
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 6: who weren't parents, making sure that young black children were

576
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 6: getting registered for school. What I began to see out

577
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 6: of this is just this amazing dynamic community, first generation

578
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 6: free black people in a way that just doesn't get recorded.

579
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: When Hellman's in his sixties, his wife passes away, he remarries,

580
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: and then Hellman gets.

581
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 6: Sick, and then there's a white physician who comes in

582
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 6: and signs off, and he's admitted to the asylum from

583
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 6: what I can tell, in that January of nineteen twenty,

584
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 6: and he dies in March of that year.

585
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:27,280
Speaker 1: Hillman's cause of death was listed as nephritis or kidney inflammation,

586
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: one of the last symptoms once the disease is most

587
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: severe dementia, a mental manifestation of the physical malady. After

588
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: Hillman's death, land disputes kickoff. The family is split into factions.

589
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 1: This is the era doctor West's grandfather grew up in.

590
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty, the year of Hillman's death, Doctor West's

591
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:55,479
Speaker 1: grandfather leaves everything behind his family, the land he's helped work,

592
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: his home.

593
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:03,399
Speaker 6: Human revealed a history of my grandfather that I had

594
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 6: had no knowledge of, and so as a teenager, a

595
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 6: young boy up through his teens, these had been the

596
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,839
Speaker 6: men who had shaped him, and they were land owning men.

597
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 6: And in his teenage years, these were the years that

598
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:27,720
Speaker 6: Human and Chadrick both essentially got stripped of their land

599
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 6: and died. And after understanding the life his life, I

600
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 6: understand a lot better the kind of bitterness and disappointment

601
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 6: he lived with to go from the kind of childhood

602
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 6: he had remembered. I mean, they were a struggling farm family,

603
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 6: but they owned what they owned, they owned.

604
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 3: What they worked.

605
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 6: And he witnessed, you know, real time, this family being

606
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 6: stripped of everything. And as an eighteen twenty year old kid,

607
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 6: we might call him a man, but you know, he's

608
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 6: a kid. And he goes to Jasper, tries to find

609
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 6: work in a factory and Mary's, and ends up raising

610
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 6: his family as a sharecropper.

611
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: Exactly what Hellman and Shadwick didn't want for their family.

612
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 6: And sometime in the nineteen forties, I'm told, you know,

613
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 6: he tried to convince my grandmother that they should leave,

614
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 6: and she didn't want to leave, and he left.

615
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: Doctor West could never wrap her head around why her

616
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 1: grandfather would leave his wife and ten children behind. She'd

617
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: heard that he provided made sure his family got fed,

618
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: but that was when he was there. Learning the story

619
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: of the loss and trauma he weathered at his teenage years,

620
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: that all made sense. So she took these stories back

621
00:40:59,239 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 1: to her family.

622
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:06,280
Speaker 6: After I was introduced to this history, I started asking

623
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 6: older members of my family if they knew anything about

624
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 6: these people. And it was just like a Eureka moment.

625
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 6: I remember one of the older members in my family,

626
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,240
Speaker 6: very casually, she said, oh, yeah, I remember that story.

627
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 6: For many of us, you know, we are told to

628
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 6: just look forward. There's no point in, you know, in

629
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 6: looking back. I think when I share these stories, there's

630
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 6: there's just a lot of silence, you know, cause what

631
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 6: can you say. It's a lot to take in.

632
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: Doctor West was introduced to Hellman at the end of

633
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: his life, a particularly painful episode in a life with

634
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: plenty of them.

635
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 6: For me, finding Himan at at the asylum was the beginning.

636
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 6: And you know, I have this sense of sadness when

637
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 6: I think that there was seven decades that he lived

638
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:09,240
Speaker 6: and did these fantastic things, and that in three months

639
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 6: this was the end. But I also feel that finding

640
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 6: him wherever I found him, was more important than the place.

641
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 6: The story I discovered that I was able to build

642
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:31,760
Speaker 6: out from meeting him at the asylum far out weighs

643
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 6: even the pain I think about that, you know, he

644
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,439
Speaker 6: very likely suffered in the last three months of his life.

645
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: And now with all the context, all the insight, how

646
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: does she feel towards Hillman?

647
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 6: To put it just, I guess, in a simple word,

648
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,080
Speaker 6: just a lot of love, you know. I mean, he

649
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:04,919
Speaker 6: could have been very selfish, and from what I see

650
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 6: of him in the record, he was anything but that.

651
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 6: When you look at what in particular blacks in the

652
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,800
Speaker 6: South were experiencing during that era. Yeah, yeah, you know,

653
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 6: I mean seventy six and quite frankly, for many black

654
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 6: people even in the twenty first century, is quite an

655
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 6: age to live to. So, you know, when I think

656
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 6: about it, it's just, you know, it's mind boggling to

657
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 6: think all of this front end of his life gets

658
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 6: capped by you know, three months in the asylum and

659
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 6: almost into obscurity.

660
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: Almost into obscurity. The end of Hillman's life stands out,

661
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: but the work that doctor West did ensures that it

662
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: doesn't define the man. It allowed her to paint a

663
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:04,760
Speaker 1: fuller picture. It's not all that different for Noah. For decades,

664
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: all he knew about Doctor Smith was a headlinesworth. He

665
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: was sent to the State Asylum. But Noah's careful not

666
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: to let this part of doctor Smith's life become Doctor

667
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: Smith's life. The first time I walked into the room

668
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: that held Noah's paintings, I tried to just stand back

669
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: and take it all in at once. That was a mistake.

670
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 1: As soon as you start to break it down with

671
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: your eyes, you realize you can't. Noah deliberately refused to

672
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 1: set boundaries. Scenes flow into each other, like the flow

673
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 1: to life. The courtroom where doctor Smith had his insanity

674
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: hearing bleeds into our first view of the old asylum.

675
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: Hold the last canvas up to the first one, and

676
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: now it's one painting the brick from the house where

677
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: doctor Smith was born in eighteen ninety one matches the

678
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: brick at the State Hospital cemetery where he's buried. There's

679
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: a loose impressionistic feel to many of the paintings. One

680
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: person is painted in careful detail, while the figure two

681
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: canvas is over is a blur. In a way, It's

682
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 1: a peak behind the curtain. I'll look at how the

683
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: artist understands each part of the story, and the craziest part.

684
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: Noah says, this one hundred and eighty three canvas painting,

685
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: a work that inspired the creation of an entire room

686
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 1: in a museum, dozens of panel discussions, and even a

687
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: New York Times article, isn't finished. I mean it is

688
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: in the sense that it's ready to show, but not

689
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: in the sense that he'll never lay a paintbrush on

690
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: it again.

691
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 2: When it comes to like deciphering what's real and what

692
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 2: isn't about not only his accounts but people's accounts of him,

693
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 2: it's like very it's very shifting all the time.

694
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: Two weeks before we sat down, it shifted dramatically this one.

695
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 1: Noah finally got his great grandfather's medical records, including a

696
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: remarkably thorough intake interview in which, over several pages, doctor

697
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 1: Smith tells his whole life story.

698
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 2: And it just seems like all the slack has been

699
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 2: let out and he is now in the asylum, and

700
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 2: he's just like it's all just he's writing letters to

701
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: people and there's not any need to keep it buttoned in.

702
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 2: He's writing letters like crazy that they're.

703
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: Just all over the place, and somebody's given him stamps, Let.

704
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: Me give him letters.

705
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:37,399
Speaker 5: He did.

706
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 2: One of these letters is written on letterhead that he

707
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 2: made because he worked in the print department, so he

708
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 2: worked the letter press, so he made letterhead David Doctor

709
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 2: David Smith, Bondar, Insissippi Hospital for his strained patient.

710
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 5: I feel like it gives me a much better view

711
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 5: of the man, the person behind the.

712
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 4: Legend in our family.

713
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 5: You know, he's been this figure of mystery, but hearing

714
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 5: these kind of personal details, it sounds like he was

715
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 5: a gentle person.

716
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 3: He seems very pleasant. I mean, maybe that explains why

717
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 3: Mama was so hurt by his loss. She loved him,

718
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 3: and he loved her enough to make her those classes

719
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 3: because she wanted some. And it must have been a

720
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 3: good feeling relationship, or she wouldn't have been so traumatized

721
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 3: by it. If he had been an ogre or dangerous

722
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 3: or hateful, or had done harmful things to her mother,

723
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 3: she wouldn't have suffered his loss the way she did.

724
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: But there's of course a caveat. Noah can't be sure

725
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: if parts of doctor Smith's autobiography are based on delusions

726
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: and anything.

727
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 2: And I thought I understood, you know, I have to

728
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 2: make sure that I'm not getting fixed on that, because

729
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 2: who's even real and who isn't. I've kept thinking about

730
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:13,839
Speaker 2: like those like plenario worms. You can like their microscopic

731
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 2: and you could chop them in half and each one

732
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 2: will grow the rest of its body, you know. So

733
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 2: it's like any of this could just be locked off

734
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 2: and then just paint a whole new Like his autobiography,

735
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,319
Speaker 2: He's like, this is what happened my entire childhood. Until

736
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 2: I was in my mid twenties, I didn't have any

737
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 2: of that information before.

738
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: But having this information means that Noah may eventually replace

739
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: some of these canvases or repaint details. So it's likely

740
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 1: this is the only time this version of Noah's work

741
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 1: will be shown. You know.

742
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: It's like constantly growing and reinterpreting, you know, the sacred

743
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 2: text of some kind. You know, you have to keep

744
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 2: reinterpreting and interpreting, interpreting.

745
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,320
Speaker 1: By the time the show opened, Noah and I have

746
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:02,840
Speaker 1: been talking about his work for almost a year. Probably

747
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: another reason it was so overwhelming. There's always that cognitive

748
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: dissonance when you finally see something you've spent forever imagining.

749
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: But there was one part that threw me. It's right

750
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: in the middle, canvas number ninety two, in fact, out

751
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 1: of one hundred and eighty three. I turned to Noah,

752
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 1: It's funny. When I look at it, I feel like

753
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: the part that my eye tends to go to the

754
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 1: most is that right there. It's two men in dress

755
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker 1: shirts and trousers. One also wears an apron, and it

756
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: appears he's grabbing the other man's nose with pliers. This

757
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: is how Noah came to tell me the story of

758
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 1: Saint Dunstan.

759
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 2: And he knows instantly that that's the devil.

760
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,439
Speaker 1: As Noah explained, this is the moment of his great

761
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: grandfather's unraveling, the moment that the community decides his reality

762
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 1: didn't match theirs. Doctor Smith wasn't sent away just because

763
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: he'd been having delusions. He was sent away because he

764
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: was accused of a crime.

765
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:16,919
Speaker 2: So Doctor Smith had started to lose it and could

766
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 2: not really keep himself together, and he had moved his

767
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 2: family to Louisiana. But then to keep his business going,

768
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 2: he was still traveling around, and he traveled to Mississippi

769
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 2: to Port Gibson to check eyes.

770
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: This was using the mobile optometry truck he'd patented. Doctor

771
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: Smith would place a notice in a newspaper and a

772
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:40,919
Speaker 1: few days later he'd show up in that small town

773
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:43,879
Speaker 1: with his truck. People would come to his truck. He'd

774
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: take them inside, perform eye exams, grind spectacles.

775
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 2: And a fifteen year old girl went to him to

776
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 2: get her eyes checked and left his office saying that

777
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:56,759
Speaker 2: he had attacked her. He was set upon by a

778
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 2: mob of her relative who drug him out to Hermanville,

779
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 2: a couple of miles away, and were in the process

780
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 2: of lynching him when the Clayburne County sheriff showed up

781
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 2: and arrested him.

782
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 1: Instead of being lynched, doctor Smith was taken to jail.

783
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: It was a move that probably saved his life.

784
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 2: And he maintained his innocence for the rest of his

785
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 2: life and said, I never did anything. I never did

786
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 2: anything to her.

787
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 1: Doctor Smith avoided a criminal trial. It sounds like his

788
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: father in law, Gerard Brandon, that godlike figure pulled some strings.

789
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,800
Speaker 1: What he got instead was in insanity hearing. We know

790
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: how that turned out.

791
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 2: More than half of his existence was in state custody.

792
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 1: And for Noah. This is another important reason to see

793
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: this work as largely unfinished because this pivotal moment in

794
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: his grandfather's life, this act that meant that his daughter

795
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: Margaret never saw him again, and that he would spend

796
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:00,800
Speaker 1: the second half of his life in state custody, that

797
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,320
Speaker 1: got him so carefully erased from his family that his

798
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:05,840
Speaker 1: great grandson had to spend the better part of a

799
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: decade figuring out who he was. Noah's still wrestling with it.

800
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 2: In the interviews with him, it seems as if he's

801
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 2: wanting to say that it's not that nothing happened, but

802
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 2: I did not force myself on her. That's more the

803
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 2: phrasing that seems to come out.

804
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: Of course, Noah knows that there's no such thing as

805
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: consensual sex with a fifteen year old, and he knows

806
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: that doctor Smith's mental illness is wrapped up in this

807
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 1: alleged attack. In those same records, doctor Smith tells the

808
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 1: asylum's doctors he's part of a breeding program run by

809
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 1: the Secret Service. With this painting, Noah intentionally broke his

810
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,759
Speaker 1: family tradition of keeping people in the dark. But what

811
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: happens when you turn on the light and you still

812
00:52:57,040 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: don't know what you're looking at?

813
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 2: How I'm suppose to relate to doctor Smith, and all

814
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 2: the characters in this story change depending on what information

815
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:11,359
Speaker 2: is available. You know, I mean he sat there being

816
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 2: kind of a silent monster figure for a century, and

817
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 2: ever since the story started coming out, it's like, how

818
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 2: much compassion should I have? Is he mentally ill? Is

819
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 2: he a monster? Did he commit this crime? He was

820
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 2: he forcefully committed? Was he happy there? You know?

821
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:29,240
Speaker 1: Was he healthy?

822
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,839
Speaker 2: Did he have friends? All that stuff is like these

823
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 2: unknown qualities right now.

824
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: Noah represents doctor Smith in this Unknown Girl with Dunstan

825
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: and the Devil a metaphor about belief, but he's not

826
00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: sure it will stay that way, and so.

827
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 2: It's like it keeps me constantly moving. Well, how am

828
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 2: I going to represent him? Do I represent him as

829
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,720
Speaker 2: a lonely and pitifoil figure or was he completely happy

830
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 2: for forty years in the asylum? I feel like I

831
00:53:57,320 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 2: have to constantly shift my weight.

832
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 1: He suspects his family did too. There was shame, yes,

833
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 1: about mental illness and about his alleged assault, but maybe

834
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 1: it was mixed with uncertainty about how to feel about

835
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: this man they'd all loved so much. The way Noah

836
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: wrestles with this is clearly painful. He's so deeply conflicted.

837
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: Maybe sometimes it's just easier to start your story at

838
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 1: a point that's pasted all that uncertainty and pain.

839
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:35,600
Speaker 6: Our story starts with the first generation, like Freeborn. I

840
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,319
Speaker 6: don't think it's necessarily always intentional, but I think it's

841
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 6: the way we are inculturated in America. Who wants to

842
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 6: build a history of themselves as rooted in slavery, and then,

843
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 6: especially when that slavery is also tied to an insane asylum,

844
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 6: which is also another kind of taboo, And so you

845
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 6: start your history at the point that is less painful

846
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 6: and more pleasing.

847
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 1: The night before we left town, we met up with

848
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 1: Noah for a drink at the Hotel bar across from

849
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Museum of Art. As we were saying our goodbyes,

850
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 1: he mentioned offhand that he'd sold a few paintings to

851
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: the hotel. He painted them years ago, just as he

852
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: was starting to conceptualize his show, and they were hanging

853
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 1: right down the hall, so we walked over to see them.

854
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: The paintings were self portraits, and one Noah was working.

855
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: His daughter, who often watches him paint, sits on a

856
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: ledge nearby. Kind of reminded me how Margaret watched her

857
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: own dad, doctor Smith, making glasses. And then, to my surprise,

858
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: there in that same painting was Doctor Smith. He's gray,

859
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 1: somewhat faceless, but he's there across from a silhouetted teenaged girl.

860
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:07,399
Speaker 1: Noah was just as surprised. He'd forgotten that was there.

861
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:08,320
Speaker 4: I learned.

862
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 2: All I knew at that point was that if fifteen

863
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:16,399
Speaker 2: year old girl had gone to to have him check

864
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 2: her eyes, and she left saying that he had assaulted her.

865
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,879
Speaker 2: So I was trying to figure out how I would

866
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 2: paint those two together.

867
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 1: This painting was big, over five feet tall, much bigger

868
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: than any one canvas from the show. But it was

869
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 1: also a one off, a good way to explore ideas.

870
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: But I stopped.

871
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,720
Speaker 2: You know, it's unformed because I stopped painting it because

872
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:45,839
Speaker 2: I'm sure I hit the same wall, like, I don't

873
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 2: know how to I can't portray this, you know, I

874
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:49,880
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm portraying.

875
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,439
Speaker 1: But then the museum gave him this platform to tell

876
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: Doctor Smith's story. He had to choose which one to tell.

877
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 2: But I've clearly made it very hard. I have a

878
00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 2: very hard time trying to figure out how to make

879
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 2: that those two be together. You know, I do not

880
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 2: at all dismiss the idea that he could have done it.

881
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:09,360
Speaker 2: You totally could have done it.

882
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 1: You can hear Noah wrestling with this idea and with

883
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 1: his own new role in the family myth making. So

884
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: when it came to the show that would present this

885
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 1: man to the world, Noah opted to let the answer

886
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 1: shape shift mold to the eye of the beholder. He

887
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 1: put it to Saint Dunstan.

888
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 2: But that story, next to the doctor Smith story, it's like,

889
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 2: that seems like a problem that Dunstan was having it,

890
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:44,440
Speaker 2: you know, was he imagining what was going on? Did

891
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 2: he attack an old man? Nobody saw him change except Dunstan.

892
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 2: An old man went in, and then an old man

893
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 2: went out saying that Blacksmith attacked him. I'm real cautious

894
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 2: about like making a saint comparison with doctor Smith, But

895
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 2: it was just so which it's so chimed so much.

896
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 1: Saints and sinners, truth and lies. These binaries are the

897
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 1: underpinning for countless parables, myths, and family legends. But the

898
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: real stories, the ones underneath those, they're always more complicated

899
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 1: than that. That's true of doctor Smith's story, and it's

900
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 1: certainly true for the state institution where he spent the

901
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 1: last part of his life.

902
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,400
Speaker 4: What ends up is the Southern Gothic, the terrain of

903
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 4: terror and a couple of the reports. People say, what

904
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 4: are we supposed to do when people show up at

905
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 4: the door?

906
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 2: Are we supposed to just leave them out on the streets?

907
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 4: Oh, everyone who.

908
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 3: Worked in the asylum was evil and they would have

909
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 3: stolen anything valuable that the patients had.

910
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:51,400
Speaker 1: Obviously that's not the case. Dig deeper, and sometimes you

911
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:55,959
Speaker 1: only find more to question. That's next on Under Yazoo Clay.

912
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: Under Yazoo Clay is executive produced by the Mississippi Museum

913
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: of Art in partnership with pod People. It's hosted by

914
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: me Larison Campbell and written and produced by Rebecca Schasson

915
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: and myself with help from Angela Yee and Amy Machado,

916
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: with editing and sound design by Morgan Fuz and Erica

917
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: Wong and thanks to Blue Dot Sessions for music. Special

918
00:59:17,400 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 1: thanks to Betsy Bradley at the Mississippi Museum of Art,

919
00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:23,000
Speaker 1: as well as Leida Gibson at the Center for Bioethics

920
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: and Medical Humanities at the University of Mississippi Medical Center

921
00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:28,840
Speaker 1: visit Jackson, and Jay and Deny Stein