Gerald "Creative" DePrie is a Kentucky native folk artist who lived from 1935 to 1999. The Huntington Museum of Art has 5 pieces and he is included in two books about folk art. He had a very eccentric personality.
This is Gerald C. DePrie’s (1935-1999) autobiography. It was handwritten with a pencil, in large lettering, on one side of 18 pages of copy paper in 1990. DePrie had no regard for punctuation, rarely using periods and obscurely using commas. He also uses upper case and lower case in strange ways. I’ve taken on several corrections (spelling and punctuations) in order for it to be readable. I’ve left some grammatical errors to preserve the regional dialect. This autobiography is most effective read in its original hand written form.
To my knowledge, there is no record of how we acquired this original autobiography. The Huntington Museum of Art had a good personal relationship with Mr. DePrie and it could be very possible that he personally brought it to the facility.
A life long autobiography of Gerald C. DePrie (May 6, 1935)I would like to go back to the year 1945. On Staunton Rd, before they built the Hatfield Mansion, there was a cemetery on that ground. So what they did, they up lifted all the tombstones and heaved them all down the embankment and into the Ohio River and then they built the mansion. After some time living there, the son killed his parents. My Grandfather told me about the happening because on that same hill sight my mom used to look for arrowheads when she was a teen-ager and then when I was growing up I became interested in looking for them also. So me and Bobby Thompson, a “boyfriend”, we would go up to that same hill sight and look for arrowheads and then that’s when I noticed some tombstones still stuck on the other side of the hill sloping down in the Ohio River.
Our next door neighbors, the Newsomes, they had two sons. Mom knew the newsome boy’s because she grew up with them. My Grandfather bought the home on Witters Rd. after moving here from Cincinnati.
Now to go back to the year 1938. Bill Newsome drowned in the Ohio River, I was only three years when that happened, as I understand I really make Mom heartsick. This happened when they all where pretty close friends. He was only 22 years old.
Between the ages of 4 and 7 Mom or my Grandmother would make a bedroom out of the sleeping porch. It was sort of a half room just enough to put a baby bed or a half bed in that room, there was a dresser and mirror and a very old rocking chair and also a closet. The sleeping porch was all wood floor except for maybe a small oval hoafs rug.
I will go back to 1942 and 1943. I was very scared to go back to that room and I remember this even at the ages 4 and seven. The rocking chair did rock all by itself with nobody helping it.
I vaguely remember at where it was sitting and all of the sudden it began to rock sometimes very fast it even seemed to walk towards me while still rocking, it terrified me in such a way that I would not go in that room at all. The rocking chair was eventually taken out of the room. I don’t know what ever became of it. The rocking chair was an antique as I recall now because it look ancient even then. Because I still remember what it looked like even to this day.
How I know that above is factual because, we where a music family at the age of twelve or maybe thirteen I heard the song Stormy Weather in the Lyrics of that song mentions a rocking chair. So one day we where listening to the radio we where all at home, we could hear the song as it was playing, I asked mom about the stormy weather song I said mom the rocking chair that isn’t the same one that was in the sleeping porch when I slept there is it? She said no in so many words but also went on commenting that I would relate the two together and also there was still talk about the stormy weather song and the rocking chair in the sleeping porch even until some years later, mom would still maybe comment on that song.
Me and Bobby Thompson went out to do some digging the idea we had was to build an underground tree house. As I look back it was a type of bunker we put boards on top of it. It was three feet deep approx, 2ft width but when we started to dig, we dug into a groun pocket or what we thought was a worm pocket or some kind of insect nest, but we sure found out in a hurry what we dug into. I didn’t know Black Widow’s spiders burrowed into the ground because what we saw was sure something to see. We actually dug into a nest of Black Widow spiders. We counted possibly 6 Black Widow’s so what we did was very very stupid. I went back to the house and got a mason jar. So what Bobby and I did, we took the jar laid, the jar down at the entrance of the nest they were crawling around in and out of the nest so we waited until some crawled into the jar and sure enough two or three got into the jar we capped the mason jar and ran upstairs. I showed these spiders to my Mom and she said they where “BLACK WIDOWS” they have a red hour glass on their back side and these spiders were deadly. So we took the jar of poisonous spiders and buried them in the ground.
When I do drawing I don’t know this is or if it’s sheer fantasy on my part but I am in a polar position when I draw a picture. I try to perceive myself in somewhat or somehow in a positive-alignment or perfect balance of myself in positioning of my art or in fact anything I do, I try to do in a positive manner.
Now I would like to go back to our deceased neighbor Bill Newsome because it is only a gut notion of mine or maybe just a wild guess or maybe that his spirit really did haunt this part of our house as I understand they where close neighbors because even to this day mom keeps his picture up standing some place everywhere they have moved or lived in the past 50 years. His picture still remains standing in there home. Also they have a picture of Mrs. Newsome, also in memory, also which stands beside Bill’s.
Continuance of vital time period from 1980-1987 as I recorded this information of myself this will feature some of the most baffling mysteries of my life. In 1980 I would start to take walks and on my walks I would see things that I had no explanation for. What I’m trying to say is I would see things that would be a lost article such as everything and anything that would have belonged to a person now or 200 years ago lost artifacts on planet Earth.
Includes – solid gold rings, solid gold necklace chains, solid gold bracelets, solid gold pin with diamonds, gold coins, silver coins, coins that go back to 1915, 1882, 1913, 1925, 1890, 1910, ect ect ect----
Other collectables: are very old bottles, Iron horse that was once on a weather vain. Age of the
artifact possible 100 years. Lost money: astronomical sum, have no idea the amount, in coins and paper money a ball park guess, I would guess at $1,500. This money was found between 1975 up until now, 1990. To find lost money had many peculiar traces of the unknown. Example: on Olive Street Walnut Hills area, I would walk up to school with Kate one morning. I took a walk up to the village on my way I looked into Mrs. Humpheries drive-way porch. The season was winter. What I saw was a $5.00 Bill laying at the very top of the drive way. I went up and sure enough it was just that a five dollar bill, but the next day on my way up the same hill “Olive street”, I was taking Kathryn to our lady of Fatima school, when I noticed something odd, you cannot see up there from the side walk. “How could this have happened, “It is absolutely impossible to see from the side walk into Mrs. Humphery’s car port drive way. HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED??-?? It is totally impossible but that one morning when I saw the $5.00 dollar bill laying up there. I walked up there and picked it up but how I ever saw up there from the sidewalk is totally of the unknown and my candid opinion is something took place that winter morning that has no rational explanation.
