Intention: “What are we trying to do here?”
This museum is a tribute to one tenant farmer, Cornell “Shorty” Lawson, honoring him and thousands of farmers throughout the tobacco-growing South.
The Man: “Who was he?”
Lawson was widely known throughout the Hesters Store Community for his manly humanity, his work ethic, his endurance…
Everyday Life: “We got electricity and no water.”
Tobacco dominated daily life; it was brutal row work plowing behind a mule, planting, suckering and worming…
Outsider Art: “How can we bring the stories to life?”
Rather than reconstructing each room with period furnishings, the museum combines oral histories with outsider art, drawings…
Stories: “Nobody got stories like I do.”
Interviews with people who knew Cornell Lawson paint a consistent picture of a man of unusual character. Shorty’s daughter Carolyn said that she has the best stories.
Making the Museum: “I’m making a museum for Shorty Lawson.”
One day a neighbor stopped by and asked me why I was spending all that time fixing up that old rundown tenant house, and without thinking, I blurted out, “I’m making a museum for Shorty Lawson.”
Visit: “Shorty’s spirit is everywhere on the farm.”
The Museum is located in the house where the Lawsons lived for nearly fifty years. It is part of the Bowes Farm, 217 acres and buildings…
