Photo Collection — Jerry DeFelice

A resident of Rochester, N.Y. for most of his life, Jerry DeFelice (1920-2005) worked in the Public Relations office at the BTC-10/ORD military base in Greensboro from April 1943 until the base closed in September 1946. He had trained as a military aerial photographer at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, but when he arrived in Greensboro he was put to work taking photographs for the base newspaper. Since the base was still under construction when he arrived, it had no darkroom facilities. DeFelice reached out to the Greensboro Daily News, and became friends with its photographer, Carol Martin, who allowed him to use the newspaper darkroom until the camp facility was ready. Martin also taught DeFelice a lot about photojournalism, and they remained lifelong friends. It was through their friendship that in the early 1990s the Greensboro History Museum received not only a full run of the base newspaper, but many of DeFelice’s original photographs, which are presented here.