In search of George Masa’s lost work, Angelyn Whitmeyer collects old photos from every place she can find them. She has documented thousands of the famed photographer’s images from all eras of his life, particularly after he was smitten with the Smoky Mountains about a 100 years ago.
Whitmeyer is not an academic, per se. As a young woman, she started her work life as a teacher of first and second grade. Eventually, she moved into an accounting career. Those two professions underpin what has now become more than a hobby in retirement. Like a teacher, she wants to share; like an accountant, she is good at finding things.
Those “things” in this case are the photos Masa took as an amateur and professional photographer, mostly after his arrival in Western North Carolina in 1915. He died in Asheville in 1933 of tuberculosis.
