Leary Love family papers

Leary is an Irish name and was originally spelled O’Leary. The collection includes little record of the Irish immigrant, but there is information on his son, Jeremiah O’Leary, whose mother was at least in part Lumbee Indian. Jeremiah married Sarah Jane Revels, who was described as being a “free woman of color.” The couple was married by 1800 and lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was likely this generation that dropped the use of the Irish prefix on the family name, changing it from O’Leary to Leary.

Matthew Nathaniel Leary was born in 1802 to Jeremiah and Sara Jane Leary. He operated his own harness-making business and worked to promote the welfare of Africans in North Carolina; even teaching them reading, writing and mathematics at a time when it was illegal to do so. Matthew married Julia Memriel, a French immigrant who may have had some Algerian ancestry. Matthew and Julia had a number of children, including sons named Lewis Sheridan Leary and John Sinclair Leary. Matthew was dedicated to abolitionism and gave his assistance to the advancement of people of color, as did some of his children, most notably Lewis. Lewis Leary joined forces with John Brown in his raid in Harpers Ferry and was killed in the attempted insurrection.

John Sinclair Leary eventually pursued a career in the legal profession, receiving part of his education at Howard University Law School. He was later admitted to the North Carolina Bar during Reconstruction (the second black man in North Carolina to do so) and also served in the state legislature. John S. Leary relocated the family from Fayetteville to Charlotte, North Carolina and established a law practice on East Trade Street. John married Nannie Latham and had six children, including Rose Leary.

Rose Leary graduated from Barber-Scotia Seminary and Johnson C. Smith University. She was a first grade teacher in the Charlotte public school system from 1925-1964. Rose Leary continued her education at the Hampton Institute in Virginia and Columbia University. She was also a poet, song writer, and author of children’s short stories. Some of her poems were published in the North Carolina Teachers Record. She and her husband, George Bishop Love, had only one child, a son named George Leary Love. Rose Leary died on June 2, 1969.

George Leary Love was born in Charlotte, NC on May 24, 1937. He attended Morehouse College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics in 1957, with minors in physics and philosophy. Following graduation, Love worked as a program assistant with a federal program for assisting universities in Indonesia, often traveling to countries around Southeast Asia. Love later settled in New York where he studied the philosophy of art and applied mathematics at the New York School for Social Research. In 1962 he became involved with the Association of Heliographers. Heliography is any photographic process that uses natural sunlight, rather than any means of artificial illumination. Shortly thereafter (the mid 1960s), Love became involved with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a field photographer. His work with SNCC documented its activities, as well as prepared materials for their public relations and educational programs.

In 1966, Love moved to Brazil and spent most of his time in Sao Paulo, where he worked for the Sao Paulo Light & Power Company. While employed there, he worked with an extensive collection of company photographs, dating from the 1890s to the 1950s. He augmented this collection with his own photographic work. He was involved with the Museum of Art of Sao Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), working on exhibits and teaching there. While in Brazil, he married Claudia Andujar. George and Claudia had no children and ultimately divorced.

When he returned to the US in 1987, he worked as a consultant for Sony during its initial efforts to develop still digital photography. According to his North Carolina Teachers and State Employees Retirement System records, he was retired by 1994 at the age of 57 and was living in Mamaroneck, New York. He returned to Brazil in June of 1995 to have a surgical procedure for the alleviation of back pain. He experienced anesthetic shock during surgery and died on the operating table.

Love wrote or made contributions to many books and magazines, as well as curated over two dozen photographic exhibitions. Throughout his career, Love’s chief interest and pursuit was “the interface between our culture and its environment – little explored despite the outcry – and the search for new forms for the photograph and its use.” His legacy exists in the form of an extensive portfolio of photographic work, some of which resulted in published books on the Brazilian natural environment.