Retirement didn't last long

Charlie Hall

Jan. 12, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- It didn't take long for Chick Natella to realize retirement wasn't for him.

After more than 40 years of photographing brides, children and families, he sold his New Bern studio business and his trademark name last year.

He settled back -- for a while.

"I watched about as much morning TV as I could," he said with a laugh. "And how much golf can you play?"

Through his friend Ed Hughes he found a part-time job that provided the same passion he had enjoyed while shooting more than 2,000 weddings.

He's a sponsorship developer in five counties for Interfaith Refugee Ministries, speaking to churches and groups to find support for refugees.

"Most of the refugees are Burmese," he said. "Most are Christians and they were kicked out because of their religion."

He knows about the trials of being in a new country. His father, Nicolas, was a 1905 immigrant from Italy.

"I can empathize with the refugees," Natella said. "I remember my father's stories about how poorly they were treated."

After Nicolas Natella made his way through Ellis Island, he opened a marble and tile business with his brother, but an Irish-run New York City was still a tough place for other ethnic groups.

By the time Chick -- given name Robert -- was born in 1932, the cultural climate was better.

"Growing up was all about playing baseball and watching Yankee baseball," he said. In those days, the Police Athletic League provided free bleacher tickets to neighborhood youngsters and Natella went to about 50 games a season.

After high school, he joined the Marines in 1950 and was stationed at Camp Lejeune. He met his future wife, Barbara Helms, at a Saturday night dance in Kinston, although the courtship had a rocky beginning.

Bobbie, as her friends called her, didn't want to dance with the young Marine from New York, although he later danced near her with another partner and did a quick switch.

Still, she told him to get lost.

"But she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen," Natella said. The next day he hitch-hiked back to Kinston and found her house. The family was sitting on the porch. Bobbie was still not interested, but her father asked Natella if he liked baseball. It turned out they were both Yankee fans and Natella got an invitation to join the family at a Kinston Eagles baseball game.

"She still wouldn't have anything to do with me," Natella said. He kept going to Kinston and going to games with the family.

"Finally, the ice melted," he said. He and Bobbie married in February of 1952. "I had just gotten out of the Marines, got married and had $200, and no job," he said. They lived with her parents until he got an extraordinary job offer at the Western Electric plant in Burlington.

The job included a perk he couldn't have imagined -- playing second base for the company baseball team.

"In the mornings I was a draftsman apprentice and in the afternoons we practiced baseball and then played on the Saturdays," he said.

When the season was over, he longed to go home and with a job transfer to a plant near New York City, the couple moved north.

Later both got jobs at banks, but Bobbie developed a lingering illness.

A doctor examined her and had a diagnosis Natella hadn't expected.

"The doctor said to put her on a train," he said. "She was so homesick; it had made her physically ill."

The couple returned to Kinston and he got a job as a draftsman/photographer at the Stallings Air Base civilian contract flying school. The camera of choice was a Speed Graphic.

"Those were about as portable as a piano," Natella said.

When the base closed, he moved to New Bern and got a job selling cameras at Bynum Drug Store on Middle Street.

He recalled that while he was interviewing with C.W. Bynum, a woman came in with a broken camera.

He fixed the camera and got the job.

He worked there for 10 years and began shooting photographs on the weekends for extra money, using a darkroom he built at home.

In 1964, he opened Chick's Camera Center on Professional Drive, where cameras and supply sales made up 75 percent of his business. As larger chain stores began offering photo supply services, he decided to go full time with studio work in 1971.

When he opened Chick's Portrait Studio on Trent Road, he said, there were only four photography studios in town. Over the next three and a half decades he photographed the weddings of many mothers, daughters and granddaughters from the same family.

His wife died in 2005. They had been married 53 years.

"We would have celebrated 57 years next month," he said.

When he sold the business to Bobbie Campbell of Havelock last year, he said, it was with a good feeling about his career.

"I always tried to please the customer, give them what they wanted," he said. "After all, it's not your picture. It's their picture."

Newstex ID: KRTB-0236-30988358