A Home Made out of History
Updated: 11 hours ago
This story originally appeared in the Fall 2013 DHS Newsletter. Photo by Deborah Young.
It’s easy to let the past slip away if we do not put effort into preserving it. After all, history is one of the most important factors in establishing identity. For Cornelius native James E. “Jack” Conard Jr., history is a lifestyle. Jack has compiled the largest known collection of photographs and historical items from the Cornelius and Davidson area, unequalled by any other known private collection. His house, built around 1903, looks like a time capsule from the early 1900s. The old hardwood floors are worn smooth and thin in the places where residents most often walked. Almost every surface is covered with countless photographs and artifacts, portraying the fledgling town of Cornelius as it developed across the span of more than a century. Some of Jack’s earliest pictures date back to the turn of the 20th century and portray common occurrences like a ferry on the Catawba River and local landmarks like the Cornelius cotton mill.
Jack can trace his ancestry from this area back to before the Civil War. His grandmother’s grandmother, Nancy Lenora Hall, was born in 1844. In 1865, at the age of 21, she first met her future lover. She was washing clothes at the Virgin Springs in Cornelius when a Confederate soldier startled her. According to family lore, the two young people became lovers and Lenora had a son, Houston Thomas Hall. Tragically, the soldier abandoned Lenora and she was forced to raise Houston as a single mother. She never married.
Houston Hall moved to the house where Jack now lives in 1905, a year after his wife, Julia Nance Hall, died. He settled in with his mother and two of his three children, Edna (5) and Ralph (3); his third child lived with his wife’s parents. Both children were raised by their grandmother Lenora, who lived at the house until her death in 1926. Houston remarried in 1912 to Sallie Nance Hall—his first wife’s first cousin.
Jack’s Uncle Ralph Hall lived at the house for 82 years, and upon his death in 1987, he left the house to Jack’s mother, Sarah Hall Robbins Conard. Jack treasures all the old artifacts and pictures that he painstakingly collected over the years, though his favorites are the two quilts his Grandmother Edna Hall Robbins (Houston’s daughter) made by hand when she was 88.
Jack now lives in the house by himself, having moved there in the midst of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. His story began on September 2, 1947. Born in the Lowrance Hospital in Mooresville, Jack grew up in Cornelius. He spent the first 12 years of his life here, then moved to Charlotte in 1960. Jack joined the Navy in January of 1966. Upon leaving the Navy in 1970, he lived in Charlotte for twenty years, frequently visiting his Grandmother Edna. He attended UNCC and CPCC, majoring in philosophy; however, he left school prior to receiving a degree and devoted his energy to carpentry and tennis, alternating about a month of work with a month of tennis.
Jack’s profound passion for tennis is evident upon first entering his house. One room is almost entirely dedicated to tennis photos, trophies, old wooden tennis rackets, and other memorabilia. He has so many tennis pictures with friends and fellow players that they completely cover the walls and even part of the ceiling. Jack’s tennis group in Charlotte is still around after sixty years, with many members who still practice every weekend.
Jack first became interested in old photographs when his aunt came to visit, bringing treasured pictures of his ancestors. Jack quickly got hooked on preserving memories. He began visiting elderly town residents, collecting their photos and memorabilia, and recording their stories on cassette tapes. Jack’s walls are lined with shelves of notebooks containing photos and memorabilia organized by family surname. His motivation is his promise to these people that they will be remembered.
The Jack Conard photo collection has been displayed in multiple exhibitions, including the Cornelius Arts Center, the Smith History Room at Mount Zion Methodist Church, and the Davidson Town Hall.
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