WKU Photojournalist Publishes
Book On Children Of Divorce
August 20, 2004
Bowling Green, Ky. - A little girl gazes wistfully out the front door after celebrating her fifth birthday - her first without her dad. A 13-year-old boy lashes out at his half brothers after his father abandons him. Two sisters hold each other tight as their parents tell them they are getting a divorce.
These intimate moments in the lives of American children traumatized by divorce are 
among dozens captured by prize-winning documentary photographer Jeanie Adams-Smith in her remarkable new book, "Survivors: Children of Divorce."
To create this documentary, Adams-Smith, a former picture editor at the Chicago Tribune and now an assistant professor of photojournalism at Western Kentucky University, had to gain unprecedented access to children in the throes of separation and divorce. Amazingly, many of the families she approached invited her in and allowed her to observe and photograph them at the worst time of their lives.
"When Jeanie told me she was going to do this, I thought she was nuts," said her husband David, a longtime editor at the Chicago Tribune. "I could just see her knocking on some stranger's door and saying, 'Hey, I know you and your kids are going through an awful divorce, but I wonder if you’d just let me come over and hang with you for a few weeks and take some pictures?' Then I could hear a door slam. When it comes to great documentary photography, access is half the battle."
David was speaking from experience, not only as an editor, but as a father who had gone through a bitter divorce. It was his daughter Alex who inspired Jeanie to begin the project. Jeanie saw a good-hearted, friendly 9-year-old who was being shuttled back and between city and suburb every weekend. Alex accepted and liked Jeanie, but her secret desire was to have her Mommy and Daddy back together again, in the same house.
"I began to realize that divorce was different for adults and children," Jeanie said. "For divorcing adults, the process is ugly – but eventually it is over, and they can begin new lives. For children, the process is endless. Not only are they separated from a parent, but they often are forced to leave their homes, their friends and their schools. Later they have to deal with stepparents, half brothers and sisters and so on. And on every important occasion – birthdays, holidays, graduations – they become involved in a negotiation.
"That became my vision: I wanted to look at the whole process through the eyes of the children,"
she said. Somehow, Jeanie got the access she needed. She embarked on a seven-year-long project that would take her into dozens of homes, courthouses, mediation rooms, counseling centers and even prisons.
The result was "Survivors: Children of Divorce." Within its 208 pages is a compelling look at life in America, where more than 1.5 million children are affected by their parents' divorces each year and 49.8 percent of all children live in nontraditional families. The book looks into the wrecked homes of these children, forces readers to feel their pain and suffering, and ultimately allows readers to heal with them and grow strong.
As Jeanie's editor in residence, David was given the task of writing the stories.
"When I looked over the body of work that Jeanie had produced, I was amazed," David said. "The pictures were so beautiful and the visual storytelling was so compelling that I wasn't sure I could live up to task. I found my comfort zone by putting myself into the moment – into the lives of these children – and the words began to flow. I'm happy with the way it turned out."
In her foreword to the book, Suzy Yehl Marta, founder and president of RAINBOWS, an international organization that helps children of divorce, calls it "a poignant reflection" of the divorce process, "seen through the eyes of children whose families were dismantled. The wisdom expressed on these pages will offer readers insight on how children can not only survive divorce but how they can thrive as well."
The husband and wife team are living in Bowling Green, Ky., with their 11-month-old daughter Abigail. This is Jeanie's second book. Her first, "Portraits of Minor League Baseball: The Kane County Cougars," followed a minor league team near Chicago for three years. She has received many national awards for her photography, including several in Photographer of the Year competitions sponsored by the Missouri School of Journalism and the National Press Photographers Association. David has retired from the Tribune and is working on a series of short stories.
The book will be available through a website by the end of August, www.survivorscod.com, and Jeanie and David will be available Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Mass Media and Technology Hall Gallery for a book signing and photo exhibit of book images.
For more information, contact Jeanie Adams-Smith at (270) 745-6301. More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
