The Famous Portrait of the Little Girl Named Judy
By Bill Cherry
It hasn't been that long ago, really, since a major portion of physicians, dentists and attorneys had their offices in their city's downtown. The prestigious ones were in big bank and major office buildings; the lessers sprinkled in here and there.
And ladies wore their nicest dresses with big hats and gloved hands whenever they went downtown, even if they got there by a city bus rather than in the backseat of a chauffer driven Cadillac limousine.
In fact the only way you knew they weren't on their way to church was because it wasn't Sunday and they didn't have a Bible under their arm.
During the war years, Edolia (Ed) Rees and her daughter, Joyce Crainer, drove into downtown Houston for Miss Joyce's appointment with the doctor. His office was there on Main Street above a very famous portrait photographer's studio.
Miss Joyce and Miss Ed were taken when they saw the portrait in the studio's window of a pretty young girl. She was sitting on a stool, looking at herself in a hand mirror. Miss Joyce said to her mom, "If someday I have a girl, I want to have her photographed just like that."
Wouldn't you know it wasn't long until Miss Joyce had her first baby and it was a girl? She and her husband, Cecil, named her Judith; Judy for short.
When Judy reached four, for Christmas her grandmother gave Judy's mother a gift certificate so that Galveston photographer, Tommy Witwer, could pose Judy just like the little girl had been in the portrait that they had seen in the Houston photographer's show window.
When Mr. Tommy had the pose ready to shoot, he put his head under the black cloth hood of the big wooden camera. That's when he noticed something that he hadn't posed. The camera was also seeing the reflection of Judy looking at herself in the mirror. That nuance had been missing in the other photographer's work.
"Perfect artistry sent by God," Mr. Tommy said to himself, and then he pushed the plunger that flicked the shutter. God and Mr. Tommy's picture of Judy won national awards.
Sixty years later, a copy of that portrait of Judy Crainer Damiani is among my collection of favorite Galveston memories.
Copyright 2010 - William S. Cherry
The Galveston County Daily News
What a beautiful picture of Judy and a interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
Bill...
A wonderful memory, and a fantastic portrait of both a darling little girl and a bygone era!