A Black-and-White Home Mission View
by Father John S. Rausch

Bromley Gap, Va. Roby Taylor, an 83-year-old tobacco farmer from Bromley Gap, Va., was photographed by Father Bob Bond and graced the cover of the Spring 1985 Glenmary Challenge. Roby was a leader in the fight to keep his farm from being flooded by a power company.

Black-and-white photographs offer a haunting starkness that captures troublesome reality or pensive individuals. Dorothea Lange’s black-and-white photos of the Depression and Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachian portraits invite the viewer into the struggles of ordinary people whose lives, the viewer senses, are controlled by outside forces—social or economic.

For 13 years (1980-93) Glenmary Father Bob Bond served as editor of Glenmary Challenge and introduced readers of the magazine to the people of the home missions through his black-and-white photography. A missioner for over 50 years, Father Bob died Sept. 1 in Cincinnati at the age of 75. But his photographs live on.

In the storied tradition of Father Pat O’Donnell, a longtime Glenmary Challenge editor and photographer, Father Bob’s photos transported readers to the coalfields of Appalachia and to the small towns of the South. Each of his more than a dozen award-winning pictures spoke a message to the heart.

Three pre-teen boys splashing away a summer afternoon in the town pool allow the viewer to hear their laughter and smile at their enjoyment. A ramshackle house with a cluttered yard and chickens running wild captures a picture of poverty. A tobacco farmer with eyes of faith raised heavenward hints at the simplicity of earning one’s daily bread.

As editor, Father Bob highlighted the common man and common woman. He was committed to conducting in-person interviews which demanded he drive from mission to mission for the story or photo. And often he stopped along the way when an image “jumped out” at him!

Amory, Ms. Children attending Camp Friendship in Mississippi find relief from the summer heat in an Amory, Miss., swimming pool. Father Bob often spent days at a time at a mission site to capture the story and photos he needed for a particular issue.

Although his focus was on photos, he also wrote articles that promoted ecumenism, women in mission and special ministries such as People’s Self-Help Housing in Kentucky and the Dungannon Sewing Co-op in Virginia. These articles demonstrated to readers the hands-on efforts of Glenmarians to help house the homeless and clothe the naked. His profile of Sister Kathleen Quigley praised her music for Catholic worship in Amory, Miss., and his article on Sister Wilma Kramer trumpeted her pastoral presence to the local Catholic community in Manchester, Ohio.

As a photographer, Father Bob manipulated his manual cameras to bring an exactness to his photographs. As an editor, he used rigid, exacting journalistic standards. No contractions! No inaccuracies! No mistakes! “Don’t” didn’t make it. “Cheap coal spewing brownish smoke” became “Coal of high sulphur content.” A writer once was chided for using “fender” to inaccurately describe the bumper of a car. Priding himself as a planner, Father Bob proudly maintained a story and photo “in the can” for fear of a missed deadline from a writer.

In addition to serving as editor, Father Bob served as pastor in six mission areas. His mission assignments began and ended in the mountains of North Carolina, an area he called home after retiring from active ministry in 2002.

When the roles were reversed and he was the one being interviewed on the occasion of his 50th jubilee, he was asked about his favorite ministry. "

“I enjoyed two especially,” Father Bob said, “being a pastor and being the Challenge editor because both gave me opportunities for creativity and interaction with others on a very personal level.”

St. Paul, Va. Father John Jennings, who volunteered to work with Glenmary for two years, visits Lilliam Gray, 94, of St. Paul, Va. Father Bob received an award from the Cincinnati Editors Association (CEA) for this photo, just one of the many awards he won over the years for both photography and writing. He, as well as Glenmary Challenge, received almost 20 awards from the national Catholic Press Association in the 13 years he served as editor.

A Challenge cover from 1984 featured a bewhiskered gentleman with time-etched wrinkles greeting the camera with a smile and an implicit promise of a story. With this black-and-white photo Father Bob invited readers to come inside, meet some ordinary people and learn about the work being done in the U.S. home missions. It’s an invitation that was accepted—and is still remembered—by many.