Paper fans were essential equipment

PAPER FANS WERE a staple in the country churches around Esto. They were essential in the days before we had air conditioning. Every church pew was equipped with fans sponsored by nearby funeral homes, which had an ad on the back where the fan was stapled to a wooden stick. On the front was an inspirational Bible scene.

I have a collection. There’s Jesus in the Garden of Gethsamene, The Last Supper, The Good Shepherd and a few others I’ve managed to hold onto over the years. One summer I was in a Chicago heat wave and lamented that I didn’t have a fan. A friend brought one from her church with an image of the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. We didn’t have those in Esto.

My favorite fan is the newest. A few years ago I was in Florida for a reunion and got a few days back home in Esto. One morning I stopped in nearby Chipley to see Perry Wells, the retired Washington County judge and a lifelong friend and source of encouragement. I was able to capture some of Perry’s stories in a short video. He was one of the last of the non-lawyer judges. Maybe more important in Esto, he was married for decades to Hester Lee Lucas, who grew up just south of Esto. I pumped gas with her father at Bunk Johnson’s service station and always felt a little bit kin to Hester and Perry.

Hester had died by the time I stopped by, and Perry was sorting through a lifetime of memories. He’d laid out bluegrass records and sheet music — their favorite — and antiques and “collectibles” of all manner and turned his home into what he called Perry’s Thrift Shop. He was happy to show me around, and he had a story about everything. Perry had been the longtime chairman of the annual watermelon festival, and there was watermelon ephemera of every kind. I spied a stack of half a dozen paper fans in the shape of watermelons.

“Ah, sorry,” he told me, “but those are claimed already. I sold the whole stack for $5.” There were at least half a dozen. Would the buyer really mind if there were one fewer? I’d pay another $5. “Sold!” Perry declared, and I came home with a prize I treasure and still use to this day.

The Honorable Judge Perry Wells died last week at the rich old age of 98. He was still welcoming visitors and telling stories nearly to the end. Perry never met a stranger — not when he was a probation officer, or ran a Sears catalog store, or got elected to four terms as county judge, back when non-lawyers were still eligible to serve. And certainly not in his long retirement, when he had all the time in the world. Like many other people, I will miss him. I think of him every time I reach for my fan.

OBITUARY: Perry Edward Wells (1927-2026)

EARLIER: “A treasure from home“