NATCHEZ — John and Pam Finley did not lose a home to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but many of their possessions did.
The Finleys were housing a collection of West African and African-American folk art in the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi when the building was destroyed by the storm.
Pam Finley said after the horrific storm left the Gulf Coast a virtual ghost town, she was forced to find a new home for the collection.
"Katrina put a barge on top of the museum," she said. "And they had to scale back the rebuilding plans for the museum because there just wasn't any money.
"So they asked us to pick up the collection. Now they are only going to have (George Ohr) and maybe local artists in the museum."
So the Finleys, with the help of volunteers, packed up the collection and drove it to their home in New Mexico.
But the collection is no longer homeless. The nearly 300-piece collection has found a new home inside the NAPAC Museum on Main Street in Natchez.
While Finley said the building is a perfect home for her family's collection, it was only by chance that she and her husband discovered Natchez.
"Thanks to a Greg Iles book, I heard about Natchez," Finley said. "I lived in New Orleans, but I had never been here, but it sounded like somewhere we would like and the two of us took a trip."
Almost immediately the wheels started turning on how to get the collection to Natchez.
Finley said she approached NAPAC Director Darrell White and Natchez Mayor Jake Middleton about possibly moving her collection.
The collection now being housed at NAPAC features a variety of masks, figures, clothing, textiles, furniture and folk paintings.
Some pieces were specifically designed to ward off evil and provide protection, she said. And, she said, though they are thousands of miles from their homeland, the pieces are still providing protection - the collection has survived at least two disasters.
A fire that did substantial damage to their house in New Orleans did not harm any pieces in the collection. Likewise, each piece also was left undisturbed by Hurricane Katrina.
"They are doing their job," she said.
Posted By:
Jennifer Edwards • The Natchez Democrat • June 18, 2009
Posted By: Daniel Moss
Thursday, June 18th 2009 at 2:15PM
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