Homer Croy’s article in the 1944 Christian Science Monitor about Maryville muralist Ellis Meek’s mural on his barn northwest of Maryville.
Nodaway County Tribune, February 27, 1944
Ellis Meek…… Barn Muralist Writing recently in the magazine section of the Christian Science Monitor, Homer Croy tells something of the beginning of his interest in barn murals. He reveals for the first time that the mural now adorning the front of the large barn on his farm northwest of Maryville was designed and painted by a Maryville boy, Ellis Meek, who declares he “made signs before he could talk.” Croy recounts meeting several barn murals while covering a magazine assignment in Wisconsin. It then occurred to him that it would be a fine testimonial to his pioneering parents if he should have a memorial mural done on his new barn-“the barn I had built with adjectives pecked out on my typewriter,” as he phrases it. Here’s the story as Croy relates it in the Monitor: I talked the idea over with an artist in my own town, Ellis Meek, who bore an excellent local reputation. He was astounded. A painting 36 feet across! And he didn’t know anything about what a covered wagon looked like, its details. Or how an ox-yoke looked. Began the adventure of getting authoritative pictures of covered wagon days. I wrote to the studios in Hollywood and asked them to send me “stills” showing the details of ox teams and prairie schooners. Ellis Meek and I worked out a watercolor sketch — the hardest thing of all to “get”—the mounted figure. My! The horse’s head was not right; there was not the proper bend to the horse’s forefoot. You’d be surprised how many troubles you’ve got when you become a barn muralist! Finally, everything was right, and Ellis started working. First, he divided the sketch into little squares, then the end of the barn into the same number of squares. These little squares in the watercolor sketch were enlarged 16 times. I tell you, it was exciting, day by day, to see the painting grow! It took five weeks, not a full day each time, due to stormy weather and light issues. Finally, the day came when it was done. I was the owner —the proud possessor — of a barn mural. But not just an ordinary everyday barn mural (so I thought), for it showed my own father and mother -prairie pioneers. It is the only one of its kind in the United States. I am pretty proud of it! The price? You’ll want to know that. But you’ll have to write to Ellis Meek and ask him that. New barn muralists are reticent about anything so crass as money. Pennsylvania flourishes with barn murals. They are thickest near Doylestown. The closest barn mural to New York City that I know of is one in Dutchess County, hard by the town of Amenia, and is on the front of an old coaching inn, the Drovers’ Inn. This shows a herd of cattle being driven along a rustic road. Please take a look at it the next time you’re out coaching. I’d like to see every barn have a mural, especially if the painting shows some local scene. This would be beautiful. At least, better than the horrible advertisements that have for SO long “scarified” American barns.
