On My mothers side
by Emily Grimes

The site of a Civil War battle and a touchstone in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, has long held an evocative place in American history. Yet the refined, leisurely lifestyle of the Mountain’s affluent residents throughout the twentieth century has remained hidden from view—until now.

In On My Mother’s Side, Chicago-based photographer Emily Grimes offers an insider’s view of the secluded, tight-knit community in which she was raised. Growing up in the rarified air atop Lookout Mountain, Grimes, her siblings, and their twelve cousins were surrounded by parents and grandparents for whom both the daily cocktail hour and Sunday church services were sacrosanct. Through sensitive and crystalline photographs spanning three decades and four generations, Grimes captures a time and a place where live-in maids ministered to family needs, holiday traditions continued despite divorce and remarriage, and entire lifetimes were lived in one small town.

Unlike many of her relatives, Grimes moved away from Lookout Mountain as a young adult. In the 1970s, as her career as a photographer took shape, Grimes became her family’s unofficial documentarian during her frequent trips home. Snapped unobtrusively, her photographs portray a seemingly idyllic land whose residents, cradled among their loved ones and the comforts of life, appear always sun-kissed, elegant, at ease. Yet in poignant (and at times humorous) stories accompanying the photographs, Grimes reveals not only the delights of belonging to a large, loving family, but also the sorrows and struggles that play out beneath the polished surface.

On My Mother’s Side chronicles the Caldwell family’s journey through the past century even as they remained firmly rooted in the fertile soil of Tennessee. Giving us more than an intimate family album, Grimes shares the saga of an American family during a time when snapshots were preserved within the pages of thick albums and black-and-white portraits proudly lined the walls.