Two of the most interesting, accomplished,
and talented people ever to appear on the Springfield arts scene
were Romain and Ellen Proctor, who quite casually fell in love with
the ancient art of puppeteering during the Great Depression and over time became
influential and internationally known experts in the field.
Romain Proctor — or Proc, as he was
known, even to his wife — was born in Birmingham, Ala., in
1899. As a child, he took a fall while playing outdoors, and a
terrible infection set in, causing him to be hospitalized on and
off for two years. During his lonely convalescence (he was just 8
years old), his only playthings were some Japanese hand puppets
that his parents had given him. He couldn’t possibly know
then that the long and imaginative hours he spent with his wood,
cloth, glue and papier-mâché friends would eventually
develop into a talent that would put food on the table and send his
children through college.
The young Proctor developed into such a
promising illustrator that he was sent from Alabama to the Chicago
School of Fine Arts and thence to the Art Institute of Chicago.
There he studied both illustration and theater and, after earning
his degree, came to Springfield, where he took a job as an
illustrator with the Capitol Engraving Co. Here he did not only
illustrations for his employer but freelance work as well —
illustrations for books (he illustrated Benjamin Thomas’ book
on Lincoln’s New Salem, as well as much other Lincolniana),
watercolors, and woodblock prints (one of which hangs in the Vachel
Lindsay home). He was also active in local theater as a makeup and
scenery man and taught art classes at the Springfield Art
Association at night.
In 1921 he married Ellen Sawyer, a member of
a prominent Hillsboro family and one year his junior. Sawyer was a
writer for the society page of the Illinois
State Journal. Marriage spelled the
end of her journalism career, for newly married women in those days
left the workplace to start their families. While Proc was still
teaching at Edwards Place, the Art Association decided to stage the
Beaux Arts Ball, which became an annual event. Proc and Ellen were
asked to perform a puppet show with a pair of Punch and Judy hand
puppets that another instructor had brought from Germany. Not
knowing anything about puppeteering but willing and eager to learn,
they read everything they could on the subject (eventually their
library on the subject was the country’s best) and went ahead
with the production. Thus began their passion for the art form that
would endure for the rest of their lives. As Proc told Liberty magazine
in a 1945 interview, “Don’t start playing around with
marionettes unless you’re willing to have the little devils
crawl into your heart. They have an appeal that’s all their
own. Once felt, it’s hard to deny.”
At first, puppeteering was merely a
hobby for the Proctors, who lived at 1128 S. First St. But during
the Great Depression, business at the engraving company slumped,
and Proc and Ellen found a moneymaking niche by performing for church groups and local civic organizations for a
percentage of the gate. They also performed at local schools and turned
the proceeds over to the PTA to buy bread and oatmeal for the students,
many of whom were drastically undernourished by today’s
standards.
In the basement of the couple’s home,
Proc had a workshop, in which he began turning out exquisitely
beautiful characters for their productions — mostly classic
folk tales (oftentimes adapted), such as
“Rumpelstiltskin,” “Hansel and Gretel,”
“The Three Little Pigs,” “Little Red Riding
Hood,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” They
produced everything they used in their shows and constantly worked
and traveled around the Midwest, performing for kids and lecturing
and holding workshops for adults at colleges and museums (among
them the Field Museum in Chicago and the Detroit Institute of
Arts). The pair traveled in an International truck pulling a
trailer of Proc’s design and manufacture.
“I did our own booking, and I did our
own bookkeeping,” Ellen said in a 1985 oral history with
Milton Moore. “Proc had no sense about money.”
In 1954, the Proctors took an apartment in London
and used it as their headquarters while they toured Europe. Proc
revived the International Puppeteers Association (he founded the
American branch) and sat on its executive board. He also designed the
Puppeteering badge for the Girl Scouts of America and wrote the
qualifications for its fulfillment. Proc and Ellen made the art form
their lives, and they worked together until Proc’s death in
Springfield on Jan. 6, 1961.
After Proc’s death, Ellen became
a curator in the Theater Arts Department of the Detroit Institute
of Arts.
“I told the kids to take the puppets up
to the attic,” she said in the 1985 interview. “I never
wanted to see another puppet as long as I lived. So the puppets
stayed up in the attic for a whole week. Then I brought them out
one at a time.”
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2005.
