Sheron’s ‘Uncle John’ Documentary Collection, Gifted To Southbury Library

 SOUTHBURY — A retrospective exhibit of black and white images of Southbury farmer John Ludorf by photographer Georgia Sheron will be shown in the Southbury Public Library’s Gloria Cachion Art Gallery through June 26 during regular library hours.

The “Uncle John” exhibit celebrates a gift to Southbury Public Library by New York benefactors Connie and Jack Hume. The Humes have donated the 62-piece “Uncle John” collection to be permanently displayed at the library.

“We felt it was very important to keep this historical body of work in the Southbury community for all to enjoy and study,” said Connie Hume. “It is a perfect record of early local farming methods and the unique farmer who lived here for nearly 100 years.”

The photographs portray the daily and seasonal life of John Ludorf who chose to use farming methods more commonly seen in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Much of the Machinery and tools John worked with were handed down from his father Julius, a German-Polish immigrant who acquired the farm in 1888 in the Purchase area of Southbury.

“The early 19th Century farming methods that John used fascinated me,” said Ms Sheron. “He lived almost all of the 20th Century, experiencing the fist time an airplane flew over the far, the appearance of a telephone, radio, electricity and tarred roads.  Yet he seemed to prefer farming things the old-fashioned way.”

Many of John’s farming skills are unknown to people in the area today.

“John could dowse for water, milk cows by hand, and plow with a huge draft horse,” said Ms Sheron. “He was very sorry when his horse died. John had to start using a tractor to plow, but said the horse did a better job.”

A neighbor of Mr Ludorf, Ms Sheron photographed him over a period of 16 years.  She would photograph him while he raked hay, planted corn or burned off old brush. They would talk about his views on life.

“His family’s hard work on the farm kept John from furthering his education past the eighth grade,” said Ms Sheron, “but he was an extremely intelligent man. He always wanted to be an engineer and design a bridge someday.”

John Ludorf was a gifted country fiddler with a wonderful singing voice. He often performed at the Roxbury fiddler’s contest. He loved to repair old violins from spare parts he kept in a peach basket.

During the winter months in the 1970s Ms Sheron began recording John’s oral histories about life on the farm. The transcripts from these oral histories, missing for over 30 years, have recently been found and Ms. Sheron is now working on a book about “Uncle John,” a true Yankee farmer.

“John worried about his farm being lost over time, but his daughter Marie has set aside over 40 acres for land trust and his old barn will soon be turned into a museum for antique farm machinery and tools,” said Ms Sheron. “He would be very happy to know his land has survived.”

Ms Sheron wrote a story about her friendship with John Ludorf that was published for the first time in 1977 in Yankee Magazine.  She was awarded an Individual Artist’s Grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts to exhibit the photographs throughout the state.

Georgia Sheron is a master photographic craftsman of the Professional Photographers of American and maintains a portrait studio and gallery at the Old Pin Shop factory in Oakville.

Southbury Public Library, at 100 Poverty Road, is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm; Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 am to 9:30 pm; Saturday from 9:30 am to 4 pm (closed in August); and Sunday from noon to 5 pm (closed July and August). Call 262-0626 for details.