I’ve mentioned in other articles in this series that the lives of the Carters were intertwined with those of other families who lived in our neighborhood. The Dawsons. The Browns. The Douglases. Far too many to remember or mention. Our daddies did business together. Some were kin, or seemed like it.
There were dozens of such families in our neighborhood, and family. But none played a bigger role in our lives than the Urquharts. John was the patriarch — a watchmaker who started developing film and dropping it off at drugstores, eventually building it into Alabama’s biggest photofinishing and camera wholesaling operation. My dad finished his career at John’s Photo Service.
Thanks to Google’s archiving efforts, I ran across this article from the 1976 Tuscaloosa News about Stephen, who was on his way to becoming a very fine classical guitarists. I thought some of their friends and family who follow this series might enjoy it. I had the chance to hear Stephen a couple of times when he played around Tuscaloosa. He was becoming very good.
It was written by my friend David Marshall. I had worked part time at the Tuscaloosa News earlier that year, but by the time he did this story, I was working the weekend shifts at The Birmingham News.
