Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

June 16, 2008

Ann Vaughn knows how to welcome guests like no one I’ve ever met. As the former head of the Mount Airy Visitors’ Center and the current director of the Gilmer-Smith Foundation which oversees the historic Robert Smith House (which houses our Simple Living offices) and the historic Gertrude Smith House, Ann has been greeting guests to our community from near and far for more than a decade now. Whatever one’s age, stage and station in life matters not a bit to Ann, she’s an equal opportunity meeter and greeter. (Ann’s an Aylet, Virginia native who has lived in Mount Airy since 1979; “they’re about to accept me as a native,” I’ve heard her joke more than once.)

When Ann recently arranged for a sculpture exhibit in Mount Airy to celebrate the life and work of one remarkable female artist, Earline heath (with a small “h”) King, she definitely was rubbing elbows with royalty. Winston-Salem, NC royalty, that is. Born in Winston, a graduate of Reynolds High School, Earline is a sculptor extraordinaire, whose work is on display in public venues from North Carolina to England and many places in between. In 1929, she married her high school sweetheart, Joe King, when the two were only 16 years old (and still a year away from high school graduation). The couple were married 51 years and traveled internationally as he painted and she sculpted. They rubbed elbows with royalty. In 1971, Joe painted a portrait of Queen Elizabeth that Ann arranged to have displayed at the Gertrude Smith House in Mount Airy earlier this year.

I had the privilege of meeting Earline on her 95th birthday this past May 10 at the Gertrude Smith House here in town where a special reception was held to celebrate her career as an artist. When she spoke at our Mount Airy Rotary Club a few weeks later, Earline revealed that she fell into sculpting about forty years ago when a persistent friend called and urged her to come take a class with her. “I never went after things,” she told the Mount Airy News, “but I didn’t pass up opportunities, either.”

A lithe, lively, lovely and avant-guard woman (who looks easily twenty years younger than her age and who is still strikingly beautiful five years shy of the century mark), Earline’s sense of humor never seems to be far away. I heard her comment to a woman decades younger than she, “Don’t ever get a facelift, honey; you’ll lose your pretty dimples!”

Earline talked about a number of things at Rotary, including how to pose for a camera—“never look at the camera; always tilt your head to the side”—her love of black-and-white photography, which is enjoying a comeback today; and of her late ex-husband, Joe King, whom she called a “showman,” as well as how much she was enjoying her new-found connection with Mount Airy.

Not only was I taken with Earline’s work but amazed when I met her companion Adam Kaye, to whom—no surprise here—none other than Ann Vaughn introduced me. Not a minute into our introduction, as Ann’s assistant was writing out my name in magic marker on a “Hello, My Name Is…” nametag, Adam saw the words “Wanda Urbanska” and exclaimed: “Are you an Urbanski?” Turns out, that was Adam’s mother’s birth name. Though Urbanski is a not uncommon Polish name, we still lingered and chatted and wondered if we might be distant cousins. We compared notes on our recent trips to Poland, and promised to get together again when he was back in the country from his home in United Arab Emirates. You just never know who you’re going to meet in Mount Airy!

In any event, that match-maker of friends and that creator of great occasions, Ann Vaughn, had pulled off another extraordinary event. Earline’s sculptures are open to the public at the Gertrude Smith House through the end of June. Arrangements can be made to see Earline’s works by calling Ann at 336.786.6856.