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Disaster and rebirth -- a story of change

JMU alumna Gladys Kemp Lisanby ('49) rallies women artists of the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath

By Jan Gillis ('07)

Glady Kemp Lisanby ('49)

In 2005, Gladys Kemp Lisanby ('49) received the Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in recognition of her work with the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

The year 2005 got off to an auspicious start for the Lisanby family. Gladys Kemp Lisanby ('49) received the Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in recognition of her work with the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and specifically for her yeoman's efforts during her eight-year presidency of the Mississippi NMWA committee. Her husband, retired Rear Admiral James "Jim" Lisanby, was busy with consulting work for the defense industry. Their family -- two daughters, sons-in-law, two granddaughters -- was thriving. Granddaughter Jennifer was the Virginia Cherry Blossom Princess at the annual national Cherry Blossom festival in Washington, D.C. Several months later the family gathered to celebrate Jennifer's graduation from Montevallo University in Alabama.

And then, on August 29, 2005, in the span of hours, their world virtually disappeared.

Like many hearty coastal dwellers, the Lisanbys weren't fazed when they evacuated their Pascagoula, Miss., home in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina -- they had weathered previous storms with minor damage and brief power outages.

Katrina disaster

But Katrina outdid all their expectations and then some. When they returned to the coast the day after the storm, debris-clogged streets were only a preview of the ultimate desolation they were to face at their address. The lower level of their 100-year-old home had been swept away, only a few powerful timbers remained as a precarious framework on which the upper floor of the home balanced.

Forget picking up the pieces -- there were none left. Their possessions were nowhere to be found; they had literally disappeared in the damaging alchemy of the hurricane. "All of our antiques, family portraits, all of those things were gone. Our bedroom was on the first floor, so all that went," says Gladys Lisanby.

It was a bitter irony for the couple who, having spent their lives on the move due to Jim's Naval career, had acquired their home in Pascagoula because "sometimes in your career you think maybe you should put down an anchor somewhere," Lisanby says. The hurricane had stolen more than their possessions. "Our history is gone ... the history of our family. Some things you just can't replace," she says.

Katrina, it seemed, had wiped their life away.

Family, friends, service

For Gladys, that life had always been about family, friends and service to others. A health and physical education major at Madison College, after graduation she started teaching at Virginia's Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, one of the state's largest high schools. She met Jim in Norfolk. He was on his first ship, the USS Mississippi. "It seemed like it was just meant to be," says Lisanby, laughing at the coincidence of the ship's name and their future residence.

In addition to her teaching career, Lisanby was active in volunteer work wherever the couple was stationed -- garden and women's clubs, Girl Scouts, Goodwill Industries, and Navy Relief. And, at every juncture, she was an acknowledged leader and won accolades for her service: a Navy Relief Society Presidential Meritorious Award, a life member of the Davis Memorial Goodwill Industries Guild, founding president of the Mississippi State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, an NMWA National Advisory Board Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts, 2004 Gulf Coast Woman, and the 2005 Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

The list might suggest a somewhat imposing personality, but Gladys exhibits an easy and beguiling Southern charm. The heart that beats at the core of her community service was refined in a childhood with parents who emphasized two things -- beauty and giving to others. "I can remember having two dozen or so Coke bottles in the refrigerator filled with roses, which I carried to the hospital at my mother's request," she says. Lisanby offers a simple explanation for her involvement in a long list of volunteer opportunities: "For me, it's always been about helping people, giving back."

She has often taken the lead in her volunteer work. When she was appointed to the board of trustees of the Greater Washington, D.C., area's Goodwill Industries she was only the second woman ever voted on to the board. "They found out that I had a voice," she says modestly. In actuality, her selflessness is complemented by skills a high-powered executive would welcome -- a mind for management, a skill for organization and a talent for diplomacy.

Take, for instance, the way in which Lisanby put her considerable skills to use for a cause near to her heart. "I've always believed that art is the doorway through which people can expand their world," she says.

"I've always believed that art is the doorway through which people can expand their world."

She denies any artistic talent in herself, giving credit to her family members as the artists in the Lisanby clan. "I was the one that got the supplies for everyone," she says. Despite her protestations, she obviously has an appreciation for beauty and eye for design. This Navy wife chaired numerous committees for Naval Relief Society balls, where, with typical frugality and resourcefulness, she would decorate by asking local wholesalers for "yesterday's flowers." When, as a favor, she left a bouquet of flowers at a Washington, D.C., office building's concierge desk, she was immediately offered a contract for floral design. It was the start of a floral business that Lisanby ran for 10 years, "I had 22 buildings on my customer list before I knew it," she says.

Championing the arts

While she disavows her own artistic talent, she has been a fierce champion of women in the arts. When she was asked to participate in the development of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the only museum in the world dedicated to women in the performing and visual arts, she soon became a member of the museum's Women's Committee.

In 1998, she was asked to establish a state committee in Mississippi to further the interests of the fledgling museum. The museum's state committees are charged with working to bring women artists of the state to national attention and to promote art education in the schools.

Hearing Lisanby describe how she went about the task of organizing the state committee, it soon becomes apparent why she has been repeatedly honored for her leadership skills.

In forming the committee she knew she would need support, not only of artists and arts patrons in Mississippi, but also of museum directors. Like all good managers, Lisanby anticipated potential obstacles and negated them. "I made a folder and put museum brochures, information about the purpose of the museum and the mission of the state committee in there. I had Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, NMWA founder and chair, write a letter to go in it," Lisanby says, "After putting all the material in the folder, I tied it with a pink ribbon."

She knew all too well that her folder would be one of many stacked in an incoming mail basket on the museum director's desk. "I'd call the director, ask if he or she had seen my information and invariably be told 'No, I don't think I have." Her strategy was genius. "I'd say, 'Well, maybe you'll recall it if I tell you what it looked like ... it's tied with a pink bow,'" she says.

A committee is born

Next, she tackled her committee's organizational structure with the same managerial prowess. "Remember, I was a school teacher for years, and we moved frequently," she says. "I'd reach out to a faculty member for every subject I was teaching in my new school and tell them, 'I'm the new kid on the block, and I don't want to make any major mistakes here. If you'll mentor and help me, I would really appreciate it.'" As she explains, "You know, people are always so thrilled to be asked for help."

Mindful of the value of appealing for assistance, Lisanby gathered 15 ladies around her dining room table, none of whom had ever been to the national museum, to discuss what needed to be accomplished. "By the time we finished, they were excited and said, 'We think we can do this!' I went around the table and asked each person what she thought she would want to chair. By the time the meeting was over I had officers lined up," she says.

Within a couple of months the group had incorporated, and in two years they were a bona fide nonprofit 501 C-3 organization. "We were living five or six months in Virginia at the time, so I was going back and forth. But it still worked," Lisanby says.

Indeed it did work. When the committee held its first public event, more than 100 people were in attendance, including every Mississippi museum director, the Mississippi arts commission director, Mississippi's first lady Pat Fordice and NMWA founder Holladay, who had come from Washington. As with all her efforts, Lisanby, a former Girl Scout herself and a frequent Girl Scout leader, employed her usual networking genius for the event. "We had Girl Scouts there as junior hostesses," she says.

She was so good at the job that the NMWA recognized her in 2004 with the National Advisory Board Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts -- the first state leader honored at the national level.

The committee flourished and so did the artists it supported. When she began the endeavor, four Mississippi artists were represented in the archives at the national museum. Today 55 artists are represented, and 10 have their work in the permanent collection. "Before Katrina our membership had grown to more than 200," says Lisanby.

Making a positive out of the negative

When the membership suffered a direct hit from Katrina, Lisanby was determined to keep the committee going and "make a positive out of the negative." She soon rallied members and directed the committee's communications officer to contact as many members as she could. Communication was key to their recovery.

Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember is a compilation of personal stories about Hurricane Katrina survival.

The book, Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember, is a compilation of personal stories about Hurricane Katrina survival written by MSC/NMWA members.

Within a year of the hurricane, the committee had published Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember. The book, a compilation of personal stories about Hurricane Katrina survival written by MSC/NMWA members, provides "a mesmerizing picture of this unforgettable chapter in Mississippi history" according to its editor, Sally Pfister. In addition to guiding the book through its development and writing the foreword, Lisanby contributed her personal story.

Recovery is not easy. In the book, Lisanby and the other authors frankly acknowledge that in the aftermath of the hurricane they lived through days of despair. Rebuilding efforts were complicated by new government regulations, insurance labyrinths, mind-numbing details involved in removing the debris that in most cases was all that was left of once beautiful and cherished homes, and arranging with contractors and construction crews to try to repair or rebuild.

"There is nothing so strong and powerful that it cannot be made better through the eye of the artist."

In her book contribution, Lisanby writes of the oddly poignant moment when she witnesses the demolition of her beloved home Wytheflair: "As work progressed, it was painful to see the blue wall of a favorite bedroom suddenly exposed, yet defiant with curtains still in place as though it did not want to be destroyed." Since the hurricane, she and Jim have enjoyed the magnificent view from the steps of a FEMA trailer, which has recently been "upgraded to a tiny Katrina Cottage," she says.

While the emotional and physical difficulties imposed by the cataclysmic event took a toll, the indomitable spirit of the women artists managed to put roots down through the rubble. Lisanby credits the artistic gift of vision for inspiring their rebirth. "There is nothing so strong and powerful that it cannot be made better through the eye of the artist," she says.

Today, true to her prediction, these artists have absorbed "the hardest blows of life and respond[ed] in beauty." Lisanby says, "We've built our committee membership back to about 150."

Lisanby shrugs at the mention of plaudits for her own indomitable spirit. "You know what they say," she remarks, "Don't look back. You're not going that way." She attributes her and Jim's ability to go on despite their hurricane troubles to the dynamics of the "greatest generation." Both born in the Depression, they were teenagers during World War II. "We knew all along that you had to be strong, it was expected of you -- to go forward."

Jennifer Kemp Bianchi's watercolor, Full Bloom

Lisanby's granddaughters Jennifer and Laura both reigned as Virginia State Princess in the national Cherry Blossom Festival in 2005 and 2007 respectively. Pictured above, Jennifer Kemp Bianchi's watercolor "Full Bloom," which appeared on notecards sold to support Virginia's representation in the festival.

What does the future hold? "I think at this point we'll be spending our time in Virginia and will be able to participate in more events at JMU. We appreciate the facilities of the metropolitan area, and we're inspired here because of the museums and the work that we can do," she says. "Jim and I are both now on the advisory board of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I'm on the NMWA National Advisory Board, and we can continue to support the Goodwill Industries. They've invited us to many things. There are many opportunities," she says about her evolving list of volunteer work.

Their family continues to be firmly at the center of their lives. "We enjoy spending time with our daughters and their families and are very proud of them," says Lisanby. "Ann, is an associate clinical director of nursing at the University of Alabama, Huntsville; and Holly is a professor of psychiatry and division chief at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Our granddaughters, Jennifer and Laura, are our hope for the future."

Whatever is in store, one thing is certain. Gladys Lisanby will find a way to apply her vision and determination to adorn the face of change with beauty.

About the author

MadisonOnline editor Jan Gillis ('07) also coordinates JMU's "Be the Change" campaign. Send story ideas or "Be the Change" nominations to gillisjc@jmu.edu.

Gladys and Jim Lisanby

Gladys and Jim Lisanby were on hand for the groundbreaking ceremonies for JMU's new Performing Arts Center in October 2007. (Gladys is wearing red, Jim is to her right). "We ... will be able to participate in more events at JMU," Gladys says about their future plans.