Adrienne Scott-Ellis and Thomas Szalay

[00:01] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: I am Adrienne Janaé Janaé Scott Ellis. I am 53 years old, soon to be 54 come October 10. Today's date is Monday, September 26 of 2022. Our location is here in Ogden, Utah. My interview partner, Tom Szalay Relationship to this partner is a newly founded friend.

[00:32] THOMAS B. SZALAY: My name is Tom Szalay and professionally I go by Thomas be Szalay I am 67, and today's date is September 26, 2022. And we are in Ogden, Utah. And my interview partner is Adrienne Scott Ellis. And we became friends recently, and I learned more and more every day about us being, like, co educators and lifelong learners because we were both teachers.

[01:13] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: All right, so, Tom, we need to kind of explain how we ended up making the connection. So I saw your photography and instantly knew that you had a gift. And as an educator, I feel like that was my superpower, that I was able to recognize the gifts and talents of my students. And when I came across your photography, I knew that that was your gift. So I need to know, what was the journey that took you into photography?

[01:59] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Well, when I was asked to take portraits of black vets in Utah, we did meet for Juneteenth. And I don't do much photography anymore professionally, I just do it for myself. But I did have a career as a photojournalist from the 1980s into the nineties, and I still freelanced for quite a while. And then I switched careers to teaching, which we'll talk about more later. But what always drew me to photography was the way it captures memories in moments. And I, you know, I had a profound teacher when I was in my early twenties who kind of, in a way, became his second father to me. His name was Ernst Haase. He was quite notable in the photography world. And his work was just such beautiful visual poetry. And it related to my heart and soul because I was pretty sickly as a teenager. And when I discovered his book called the Creation, done after the story of the Genesis in the Bible, he visually interpreted that book. I just fell in love with the idea of how you can take a picture and use it as a way of educating and telling a story without having to do the hard writing and, you know, reading.

[03:34] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Yes.

[03:37] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And so I went from San Diego to Maine in 1976, and I learned from him. And we became kind of a mentor student relationship in ways. I looked to him, up to him like a kind of a spiritual father, because I lost my dad when I was a boy from cancer. And so I. And just wanted someone that could teach me more about life. And I decided after working with him, and then going to college to pursue documentary photojournalism, to pursue my passion and tell visual stories. And that's kind of, you know, it was not a straight shot right into.

[04:36] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Education, you know, because a lot of educators, that is their initial dream and that's what they pursue. So you kind of just fell into the field of education.

[04:47] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Yeah, I did. Years later. You know, my career lasted roughly twelve years, mostly in newspapers, San Diego and freelance with La Times and Santa Rosa press Democrat and so forth. But during my last year of being a staffer, I photographed a story that just really moved my heart and it just kind of changed my life in many ways. It gave me much more a sense of, like, how big the world is and how kind of crazy the world is and how, you know, we grow up in a bubble, in a way. And granted, journalism taught me that it's not always a bubble. I photograph many difficult things, from migrants to, you know, politicians and whoever else. But when I went to Romania in 1992, I was there as a volunteer and an assistant for ABC 2020 and to help bring nine orphans back to America and to adoptive families. And this was just right after the romanian revolution and how the world was exposed to the orphan crisis in Romania and just how crazy it became because of one politician, you know, created a crazy decree in outlawed abortion and birth control for women wanting to grow the nation. And so all these orphans were created and they couldn't be cared for because families were poor and they were just.

[06:51] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And what is magical is that, you know, through your photography, you immediately see the deplorable conditions and want to know the story behind it. And you're moved to, I don't know, take action. Well, at least I'll say this and correct me if I'm wrong, if you kind of have that teacher passion, then you have that passion for children. And whenever you see children in discomfort, you just have that innate desire to figure out what you can do to fix it, to be part of the solution.

[07:32] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And so, well, and it's, I'm not gonna, I'm not qualified or was designed to really become an adopted father or anything like that. But I was gifted as a visual storyteller.

[07:45] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Exactly.

[07:46] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And can tell these stories. And some of my photographs helped that process of creating empathy and understanding for these problems that the world has and communities have and the orphans of Romania and the disabilities and the detachment disorders that they grew up with. And it was a heartbreaking story. And I've witnessed other heartbreaking stories, like I mentioned, with migrants and so forth. But what I really loved about journalism was the underdog, you know, the point of view of, like, okay, these are normal people just trying to make a life for themselves or victims from a regime of, you know, dictatorship that says, you know, and they become discarded and, you know, die and get buried in unmarked graves. And it's like, it's tragic. And, you know, the recession of California, 1992, I was laid off, but I still did this freelance work. And, you know, like Tom Jarrell of ABC News 2020 said, these kids were raised in concentration camp, you know, orphanages or institutions that were just deplorable. And I got to witness that.

[09:27] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And you were a part of making the difference. And so what I love about you and your story is that you are very good at capturing the story behind the story.

[09:42] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Yeah, I don't go for it.

[09:43] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: The everyday heroes, those that are truly making a difference with their just small acts of kindness, of commitment. And it's captured in your photography and as an educator, you know, those are the things that we use to evoke conversations in the classroom and to get people's perspectives. And one of the photographs that you have that really evokes some rich dialogue is one of the Lincoln memorial. And you've got this morning light. So there's light on Lincoln, but there at the foot of Lincoln is a custodian mopping the floor. Can you give us a little background about this photo?

[10:41] THOMAS B. SZALAY: So the early nineties, when I lost my job, I had to find a new career. And I did become a teacher at a high school in Salt Lake City, West High. And. But the nice thing about being a teacher is you have summers off. So I did do a lot of traveling, and I was in Washington, DC, and I'd been there several times. I liked that city. I love the museums and the monuments. And I photographed the memorial at Daybreak in 1993 after I photographed some romanian orphans that were adopted in Virginia. And then close to 20 years later, or 2011, I think I went back to DC, and I went back to the memorial at sunrise or before sunrise and photographed for an hour as the moon rose and the sun rose and photographed the first light hitting the memorial. And in walks this custodian picking up his mop and start mopping the millions of footprints that are left every day. And I photographed him, and he did his work with diligence. And I finally asked him, sir, how long have you been doing this? And he said, about 25 years. And I realized he's the same man I photographed in 1993. And I asked his name, and he said, david. But he was really working hard. He didn't really want to start for a conversation. But I feel like I found kind of an incredible sense of like, oh, I don't know if patriotism is the right word, but honor, you know, that. Here's this black man who's been doing his job, mopping the floor at the memorial for so long, for decades. And to Lincoln, who freed the slaves, and how the civil war is often not taught as a war to free the slaves. It's taught as a war for states rights. And I just feel like, oh, the story behind the people who came here long before a lot of white people were the slaves. And it's been forgotten and are misinterpreted or miswritten. And so I think the value of a photograph like this, it's kind of quiet, but at the same time, I find it very introspective, very, you know.

[13:47] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And it tells the complete story. The complete story, the little person that is behind the big event, the connectedness, but it tells a complete story.

[14:10] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Which to me is kind of what we talked about as being educators. It's like using a photograph to prompt conversation with our students. And when I photographed your grandmother's 95th birthday party in family reunion and learn that your family is really one of the pioneer black families in Utah.

[14:34] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Utah, yeah.

[14:35] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And it's like, oh, my goodness. Because, you know, when people ask me, why did you move to Utah? And people still ask it today, it's like they have an impression that Utah is just a white woman.

[14:51] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And no, you know, black folks with some deep roots in Utah. You know, just recently at this is the place, they've added two monuments to honor the African Americans that came with the early pioneers. And so we're starting to get to that complete story. And my life has been that kind of the untold story. And then asking you to come to celebrate my grandmother's 95th birthday, the purpose was to help me tell the complete story to my family. We ended up here in Utah because of my grandmother's brother. And she is one girl. There were eleven kids. She was the only girl, so she had ten brothers.

[15:52] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Wow.

[15:53] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And they lived in Oklahoma, and they were farmers. And this was during the time of the depression, so I know they were short on money, but he was connected to a family that had ended up traveling, and this was a white family that ended up traveling to Oklahoma. And they asked him if you would like to stay for a month and kind of see if there was any opportunities out here in Utah. And he did and then ended up telling the family, you know, Utah is a great place to relocate and come on. And so they ended up coming here. So we're talking, what, early 1920s? And we've been here ever since. And the brothers ended up establishing businesses here. So I have an uncle named Cecil Hill and his brother Carl. They partnered together, and they were the first black owned auto shop called Hill and Hill Auto and was very influential in the community. But as a child growing up in Utah, you know, I was always viewed this kind of foreign being the other. You really don't belong here. You know, first off, you're a person of color. You know, you're not lds, and then you really don't have any value because you're a woman type of thing. And so it was a struggle. I could talk to you about how I ended up in education. That struggle ended up in education. But I wanted to talk, talk to you about that complete story of the family. But if you look at photos of my family, you see people that appear white, people that appear black, and you wonder, what is the backstory behind that? And for the longest, nobody had, I don't know, they didn't feel comfortable talking about the story. And then as you've learned, you know, through the textbook about history and masters and the enslaved, you kind of make the assumption that, okay, this was a situation. There was, you know, the master family, and then there was the enslaved family. Well, come to find out, those families were interwoven. They were living together, intermarrying, having children together. And so to me, the untold story is there was that love relationship, because even after emancipation proclamation, these families stayed together. Long story short, the younger kids ended up being separated. My great grandmother, and she was raised, on her birth certificate, she was identified as white, and she was raised by a white man and a black woman. And so my great grandmother was culturalized black, and she ended up marrying a black man. And my grandmother ended up marrying a black man And then her sister, my great grandmother's sister, she was raised by the white relatives and moved on to Ogden or Oregon, excuse me. And they lived their lives as white people. And so our family history is just intermixed. And so part of my character and being is one of inclusivity in that, you know, I'm not seeing people who I encounter and connect with. I consider my family. And you could be a witness to this because you came to my reunion and photographed them. And so you see the diversity within my family.

[20:16] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Yeah. No, I think family certainly gives us a grounding. And yet sometimes I feel like, we don't even know that much about our family histories. And so through photography, I like to record memories and tell stories. And it's also when I was teaching the high school kids at West High, with my advanced class especially, I would have them photograph their family. And a lot of kids had a challenging, because they're teenagers, they didn't want to photograph their father or mother or they didn't get along with them. But I had to remind them that it's probably going to be one of the most important pictures you take because, you know, things will change, your point of view will change about your parents and your siblings.

[21:13] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Yeah. And, you know, that is, it's funny you mentioned that because, you know, now the big controversy is CRT and making our children uncomfortable with the past. And unfortunately, it's like, in order for us to grow and develop, we have to be uncomfortable. Right? Just like you're developing a muscle, you've got to break that muscle down in order to build it up. And so as you learn your family histories, it can be uncomfortable. And it's like, you know, I grew up loving my grandfather, and from my perspective, you know, he could do no wrong. The things that I remember, he was president, president of the NAACP, and just was really active in the community. Well, there's another side to the story.

[22:04] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Sure.

[22:05] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: He was very abusive to my grandmother. And so there's that whole history of, you know, the way that he dominated over my grandmother. And then I look back at some of these photographs and just see the sadness in her face. And so that kind of explains that backstory. So tying it once again to those pictures tell the complete story and is the catalyst to asking questions and some of those hard questions and how that brings out some things that we struggle with, but we shouldn't be afraid of the struggle.

[22:50] THOMAS B. SZALAY: No, I 100% agree. And, you know, my parents, my father was raised, were born in Hungary, but raised in Toledo, Ohio, and the son of a coal miner and factory worker. And my mother was raised with wealth, and they were complete opposites, you know, and she had more of an english background, but they met because of the war, world War two. And they both were kind of rebels with their own little causes, and they fell in love. He was a pilot, and she became one, too, but not in the military, but flying airplanes around with the waspental helping deliver parts and stuff to the air bases. And so she did not want to be thought of as a rich girl. And when they married, she did not want to raise us as if we had money. We were comfortable, but money was not the driving force. It was about connection and relationship, and it was really a cool thing. And I'm a twin brother, and I have twin sisters, so she had seven babies pretty quickly. But I just feel like the history of our families is so interesting because you have white and black on your side, and I have poor and rich on my side. And yet it all comes back to, like, what matters in the heart and the connection you make with people. And that's why I've always been drawn to, like, the photographing real people and stories and getting having conversations. It's so much fun to sit down and, you know, you ask permission to photograph people, and you talk and you learn something. And that was a challenge for a lot of my students because they're used to their phones and they're living in their isolation bubble. And when you give them a camera and say, go photograph, you know, five strangers in downtown Salt Lake City, you.

[25:18] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Know, asking them to get out of their comfort, get out of their comfort.

[25:22] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Bubble and just say, permission, you know, you look really interesting. Can I photograph you? And it's just for an assignment. And I remind them, most of them won't bite their head off or kill them, but it opens doors.

[25:38] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: It does. So your conversation and comment right now has brought me to talk to you about my father, because I feel like he was the one that introduced this natural world connection and how, you know, getting out in nature and just sitting quietly and listening to the stories of the mountains, the stories of the birds, and just being quiet for a moment and observe and that there's so much that you can learn. And, you know, I'm retired now, but I do have a nonprofit organization, and we use a community garden in which to be a vehicle for those uncomfortable conversations. But I also use that garden for kids to learn about nature, the natural world. Just sitting down and looking at marigolds and how they form their seeds, that whole process, it's like we've gotten so disconnected from nature and just learning from observation and quiet moments and asking questions based on what you see. And that's what happens in those pictures. It's like, if you really take a moment to observe and look and be quiet with that photo, then it's like, ah, I want to know the backstory.

[27:30] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Yeah.

[27:32] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Why does this person look sad? Why is there a change in expressions, you know, over time?

[27:42] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Oh, yeah. No. I think part of my goal of when I was teaching and just being alive is just to stay aware and be observant. And I tend to photograph all the time still, but it's like a sketchbook, but it's a way of keeping my skills honed. But when I think about it, it's also, for me, a diary and a metaphor for life in the sense of like, okay, what is God giving me today? It's like I'd always lick my index finger and raise it to the sky and say, okay, what's my exposure in the film days? Because it was before digital, and I reminded students, it's like, okay, it's delayed gratification. When you do film photography, you can't see what you get until you develop it. And you start out with a negative and you have to turn it into a positive. Yes, and that's, to me, a great analogy for life, too.

[29:04] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And understanding history, understanding that you're going to have those negatives with the positives.

[29:10] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And just having the patience to wait and see what happens, wait for the light, because photography is drawing with light, and that illuminates your subject, and you can work with the light. I prefer, you know, that's why I like journalism. It's you're working in the real world and natural lighting most of the time, and so you're capturing things that exist in reality and aren't manufactured. And, you know, granted, everybody does Photoshop now, but to me, it's just a digital darkroom. It's not a fantasy maker, right?

[29:50] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: It's like, this is truth right here in a photo. And being in Utah and going through the educational system, I can attest to the effects of not having those right pictures in the classroom. So being the only child of color through school, when I opened up textbooks and I did not see people that look like me, that affected me. And so I'm glad that at least that is shifting, that we're starting to see true representation of reality, because we are a diverse community, we are a diverse nation, and it needs to be reflected. That picture book needs to reflect reality, the truth. You know, when you talked about the one photograph about patriotism and that you were capturing that in that photo because here this african american man committed to cleaning those floors for Abraham Lincoln, you don't often see African Americans equate it with patriotism. It's like a false narrative because you just don't see that. And that's something that needs to shift. And that was, it's been one of my personal missions because, you know, as an educator, and when we talked about the flag, you know, because every day we're saying the pledge of allegiance, and then there would be times that I would see that there was a disconnect with what that flag symbolized. And so then I would often ask the kids if they had any military family to bring those pictures in and tell the story about their military person. And so when I brought my picture of my family, they were just dumbfounded because I know they had spent most of their lives not seeing photos of people of color in military uniforms.

[32:20] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Yeah. Oh, gosh, this conversation can go forever. I think the parody of storytelling and the par photography and before photography was paintings. But, you know, that's a skewed interpretation visually, because who had their portraits painted? The wealthy and the emperors and the kings. And so it wasn't until later in the 18th century started seeing peasants harvesting fields and stuff. It was always kind of an interpretation of something that an artist had to do for the church or the powers that it be. And photography is a great democratizer. And then as the Internet comes along and makes it even more democratized, but confusing as well. It's a powerful medium, and we all kind of get overwhelmed at times with it. But I think what people have to do is when they see a journalistic photograph or a documentary photograph and read an article about history, that they have to take themselves back in time and try to put themselves into that space so that their heart and their soul can be touched in a different way than just statistics or numbers often say, you know, and I just read a great book. It's an old book. It's Kurt Dronnekates slaughterhouse five. But he talked about the bombing of Dresden and how it's killed more people than the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki did. But nobody talks about this great city that was destroyed by bombing and firestorms that happened because it's just like a paragraph in a lot of history books. But he was on the ground as a prisoner of war, and my orphans were on the ground as prisoners of a regime, a communist dictatorship that. That passed some crazy laws and wanted to control women's rights. And, you know, it was all about power. And I think, you know, people have to be reminded that history will doomed to repeat itself if they don't educate themselves.

[35:05] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Yeah. From the mistakes. And that's why education is so important. As an educator, I know that, you know, I said that I had that gift of recognizing other people's gifts and talents, and the reason why we're giving these gifts and talents is to make a difference in this world. And so I am so grateful for you utilizing your talent, and you help bring out those discussions and we can make those connections in which to help the children use their gifts and talents to make this world a better place, because they then become interested in history and ask the questions of, you know, why are there certain groups that are not represented and go back and do the research and learn? And so, yeah, I feel like no matter where we go with our conversation, it goes back to the fact that we are all connected.

[36:11] THOMAS B. SZALAY: We are connected, and we have to remind each other and the children that we see in the students in classrooms that it's important to read and understand and to question and, you know, get the facts, the true facts, because the Holocaust did exist. And in ways, what I witnessed in Romania was a Holocaust for children. And where I was in Romania was the same town where Elie Wiesel grew up and then was taken away by the Nazis and thrown into Auschwitz. And people have to realize that happened.

[37:03] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And as uncomfortable as it may be and seeing those photos and having those discussions, it is so necessary. So we do not make those same mistakes.

[37:17] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Exactly.

[37:18] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: And unfortunately, I feel like, because of the lack of education, that if we don't change our path, we're doomed to repeat those ugly mistakes. I mentioned my nonprofit and the community garden. We have a mantra that we, as human beings, are a garden. And when you go into a garden, you appreciate the diversity. It is beautiful. I mean, we would not want a garden of just one particular plant. And in that garden, it's interconnected. And there's a time where there's things that are blooming, things that are going to seed, things that are going back and decomposing and going back and nourishing the soil. That's how we are as human beings. We all have a role to play in this world of a garden.

[38:24] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And I so much appreciate that, because I like to have that open heart when I photograph people, and that's what makes the exposure. Good gosh, this has been nice, Adrienne Janaé

[38:41] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: It's been wonderful. And I can continue on and on, but I know we're getting close to the end. How would you want to be remembered?

[38:55] THOMAS B. SZALAY: How would I want to be remembered?

[38:58] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Yes.

[38:58] THOMAS B. SZALAY: Oh, just, you know, I have three daughters and two grandsons and a third granddaughter on their way, and certainly I want to be remembered as a good father who cared about his children and his community and that passion and spirit keep us connected and to be accepting and open and be aware visually.

[39:32] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: Yes.

[39:33] THOMAS B. SZALAY: So, yeah, I don't know.

[39:37] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: I think that was wonderful.

[39:42] THOMAS B. SZALAY: And you?

[39:44] ADRIENNE JANAU00E9 JANAU00E9 SCOTT ELLIS: I would like to be remembered as kind of the. I don't know, like that custodian in that photo, that there were many great people that were in my lives that did some fabulous things, and I love seeing them recognized. But I'm that just custodian taking care of things in the background and making sure, yeah, people are comfortable. People feel a sense of belonging, that they have a safe place. That's how I want to be remembered.

[40:34] THOMAS B. SZALAY: It.