The Plot Thickens: Author and City Dispute Custody of Historic Ladue Photographs

Ladue resident and author Charlene Bry appeared before last week’s Ladue City Council meeting and asked the council why members would not return the photos used in her book, Ladue Found.

The book was published last spring, and Bry has planned for a second edition in September. She wants the photos back for this new version, but said the city will not return them. 

“I have a contract signed by the mayors, and that agreement says that I am allowed all the photos that Ladue possesses,” she told the board. “Over the years, (former Ladue mayor)and I collected these photos. Edie said she had them in her possession, and I could have them when the book came out. Now, the city claims that they are their photos, that they don’t belong to me even though other people gave some of them to me.” 

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Bry said another bone of contention is the location of the photos. 

“They are in a hot, dusty attic where they will disintegrate, and I can’t get access to them,” she said. 

Ladue City Attorney John Maupin reviewed the contract.

“The contract required the City of Ladue to pay Mrs. Bry $5,000 which has been paid. It also says the city owns the photographs," Maupin said. "I believe the city has fulfilled its obligations.” 

Bry said her documentation includes a contract signed by former Ladue Mayor Irene Holmes saying that the city must give Bry copies of the photos.

 “They have given me some, but not all,” Bry said. “The contract was signed in June 2003, and Ladue’s contention is that since it’s been 25 years since these photos were assembled, they feel it is past the time limit. I don’t agree nor does my attorney. They (the photos) were at Edie’s, not city hall's.”

She said she did not know how the photos got to city hall.

“They will rot in the attic, and the archivist won’t let me use them. Since they got there, I have not been able to get them back."

Bry also said that according to Esley Hamilton, St. Louis County historian, the photographs should be stored in a “humidified environment  like at the history museum” rather than in the attic.

“My book has been sold out twice, and I have to do another edition, and this edition is coming out in September,” she said. “I want to put the photos from the Ladue archives in my book.”

Maupin told Ladue-Frontenac Patch that Bry was in the archives on “at least two different occasions and what was told to me was that she picked out the ones that she wanted, they were copied at city expense, and given to her."

“I’ve heard that she would like to get back into the archives and look for more pictures and that’s fine,” Maupin said. “But that was the first I’ve heard about other pictures. There aren’t any pictures up there that weren’t there when she went through them earlier this spring.”

Regarding the storage space, Maupin said while he knows that the location is not the ideal place, “what she's talking about is a very expensive process. I’m sure it would cost $20,000 to $30,000 to store them in the fashion that she wants.”

Maupin said Bry has access to whatever photos she wants.

“I can guarantee that within a short period of time, she will have the opportunity to go to the archives and identify the photos she wants.”