Dedicated to history: Impact of Trussville man’s research, preservation still felt today

Carol Massey, sitting in her Trussville home on an April afternoon, did not know where to begin.

Her husband of more than 60 years, Earl Massey, collected, preserved and wrote so many things over the decades that now, trying to sum it all up in one hour, seemed impossible.

“I don’t know where to start because he’s done a lot,” Carol said.

She sat — in a house that Earl built for her — amongst old maps, sheepskin land patents, transcribed Civil War letters, cemetery documents that Earl created, and books with her husband’s name printed on the covers. The city of Trussville has a historical museum inside Heritage Hall, but the Masseys’ home six miles away might be just as rich in history.

“He’s been a historian ever since I’ve known him, and always working to save stuff,” Carol said. “I got hooked on it because he wanted me to help with it.”

Earl cannot reminisce on a lifelong passion for historic preservation for a newspaper story. Alzheimer’s disease has persisted for a few years now, so his family must do the remembering for him.

“It about brings tears to my eyes because I think, you know, he was so prepared and wanted to help us, to help the city of Trussville,” said his daughter, Sandra Turner. “He wants people to remember their history, and he took care of it in every way he could other than pouring it into people. You can’t make people want to know it, but for the ones who want to know it in the future and now, it’s there for them because he preserved so much. He made it available. He’s a very, very, very special, sweet person.”

Born June 24, 1934, Earl Massey worked for the city of Birmingham Streets and Sanitation department for more than 32 years. He was a supervisor. His love of history runs deeper than the roots of the 85-year-old oak trees in Trussville’s Cahaba Project. According to Carol, her husband remembered everything his daddy ever said. During World War II, she said, some of the Masseys went to build ships and airplanes. He was just a kid at the time, but Earl Massey was hooked.

“He never would forget it,” Carol said. “It was just something he was born into.”

The couple met in the 1950s at a cleaner’s business on Main Street in Trussville, in the area where, coincidentally, the Standard Oil Products Museum is located today. Carol worked at the cleaners on Saturdays, and Earl came in one day after traveling home from Texas. He invited her to a Sunday school Christmas party. She said OK. They married in 1958.

One of Carol’s first realizations that Earl not only enjoyed history but craved it was when they would travel to cemeteries on Sunday afternoons. Carol did not necessarily want to spend a weekend afternoon among the headstones, but Earl loved it. He wrote down names and all their information. He made a book out of approximately 30 cemeteries in Jefferson and St. Clair counties. People called him from across the country looking for their kin.

Back then, Earl could ask you what your grandmother’s name was and he would know your grandfather, too. He knew, after asking perfect strangers for their names, who their relatives were.

“He knew everything about them because he kept up with everybody, especially people that had lived in Trussville or was kin to somebody in Trussville,” Carol said. “That was just really important to him. That’s just the way he was. He had a memory that wouldn’t stop, but it did now.”

Earl was always busy. He worked for the city of Birmingham, built a house for his new bride and, inexplicably, found time to have supper on the table when Carol got home from work after 5 p.m., work a second job, and discover and document a city’s history. He worked in Birmingham until 3 p.m., at which point he would work on their house. Other times, he worked a second job at an East Lake shoe store.

I think he would just want the people of Trussville to know what a gem Trussville is, and to remember the history of it, and have it marked down so that in years to come people who come there or grow up later can still access it. I think that’s why he worked so hard, especially when he knew he was going to be losing his knowledge.

Sandra Turner

“He just found time to do it,” Carol said. “He was working around the clock, is what it amounted to, but he was determined.”

Everyone at the Birmingham Public Library knew Earl. Instead of taking a lunch break, he’d go look up information, study the old microfilm. He researched Trussville’s beginnings, the city’s housing, genealogy for those who asked him, and more. The Masseys wrote books. Earl did the research and interviewing, and Carol typed and proofread.

“I don’t even know how he did it, because he started young doing that where most people start thinking about doing that kind of thing when they get older,” Carol said. “It kept me busy, for sure.”

Once, while working in Birmingham, Earl was told to take a heap of old photos to the dump, Carol said. He found a box of Trussville photos, mostly of old houses. He took them home. Many are now displayed in the museum inside Heritage Hall, which is at capacity with relics of Trussville’s past.

“He saved those instead of taking them to the dump because that was important for the old-timey houses and things to be remembered that way,” Carol said.

Turner remembered the farm and apple orchard near the end of Brentwood Avenue and Lake Street, which is now the Lancashire subdivision. They made apple cider every year. Earl kept the apple cider press and repaired it as needed. Turner now keeps it at her home. She uses an antique banquet table that Earl found, sans the leaf that was never located, as an entry table in her home.

“He’s always wanted to make trash into treasure,” Turner said. “He had an eye for stuff like that before it was cool. That’s just him. He just wanted to preserve history and preserve things.”

“Trussville Through the Years,” the couple’s historical book about Trussville, was printed in the 1980s. It

includes topics such as Trussville’s formative years, the Civil War era, Reconstruction, the Cahaba Project and yearly notes of interest.

“My mother was the drive behind him to get it in a book or to really preserve it,” Turner said. “She was kind of the wind under his wings. He would do the research and would want to do something with it, but I think that she gave him a little more oomph to get it into print.”

Earl served on the Trussville Historical Board from its creation in 1983 until 2007, when Turner replaced him. He served as an adviser to the board from 2007 until 2020, when the Alzheimer’s disease began to worsen. The Trussville City Council in 2006 approved a proclamation in appreciation of Earl, stating in part that his “commitment to the preservation of our history benefits our community and will be a lasting memorial for use by succeeding generations.”

“He did a real service to Trussville,” said current Trussville Historical Board member Jane Alexander. “He talked to everybody. He collected stuff left and right. He probably knows things that you and I would love to know [about Trussville].”

As for Earl’s legacy, Turner said he would not want the credit for all he’s researched and preserved. After all, stewards of history do not keep it all to themselves. They share what they know in books, photographs and museums.

“What he would want is just that history is preserved and known, which is a reason he worked so hard for the museum,” Turner said. “I think he would just want the people of Trussville to know what a gem Trussville is, and to remember the history of it, and have it marked down so that in years to come people who come there or grow up later can still access it. I think that’s why he worked so hard, especially when he knew he was going to be losing his knowledge. He got everything written down and organized in such a good way.”