'If Walls Could Talk’

Fairmont's historic Shaw house stacks up with others that have been featured on HGTV's 'If Walls Could Talk'

By Mary Wade Burnside
CNHI News Service

FAIRMONT, W.V. — When Irene Shaw found a circa-1920s portrait of her husband’s Aunt Thelma in her lace wedding gown hidden away in the woman’s turn-of-the-century house, she set out to track down the actual gown.
Three or four days and several boxes and garment bags later, she did.
On Tuesday, Shaw recreated that moment and more for a television production crew filming a show called “If Walls Could Talk” that eventually will air on HGTV.
Standing amid hat boxes and Thelma Shaw’s vintage Amelia Earhart luggage in a sunny, second-floor room of the Morgantown Avenue house, Shaw pulled the dress from a box and reacted as she did on that day a few years ago when she made the actual discovery.
“I knew it had to be in the house because Thelma didn’t throw anything away,” Shaw said later. “It was one of the last finds. I thought it was a piece of lace.”
Atlanta-based cameraman Dave Dawson also filmed Shaw as she tried on Thelma’s hats that may be shown as a montage in the finished piece as field producer Theresa Hayward directed. 
“I could wear this one to church on Sunday,” Shaw said.
“Try not to talk,” Hayward said. “Just try on the hats while giggling and posing.”
Thelma Shaw lived from 1901 to 1999 and spent more time in the house, built in 1916, than anyone else. It was commissioned by her father-in-law, Marion County Circuit Judge Harry Shaw, whose son, Victor, married Thelma some time in the 1920s when the portrait was taken.
Both father and son died in 1952, and Thelma lived out her life for the next 46 years in the Tudor-styled house with French doors throughout. One room features birch paneling and a carved ceiling based on Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England.
Mike Shaw, Irene’s husband and Thelma’s great-nephew, recalls visiting his aunt as a child and mowing her lawn for his first earned 50 cents. In fact, the crew nabbed a grandson and had him maneuver a push mower out on Thelma’s tranquil and well-manicured lawn to recreate that event.
“I’ve always been enthralled with the house,” Mike Shaw said.
Thelma Shaw willed her home to Fairmont State College, which could not use it. Mike Shaw, who practices law in Point Pleasant but visits Fairmont often, bought it back from the school in about 2000 for $230,000. He has no idea how much Judge Shaw spent on the house in 1916.
“I’d go broke trying to build this house today,” he said.
The research department at High Noon Entertainment in Centennial, Colo., outside Denver, learned about the house while looking into a Pennsylvania location, said Kate Fitzgerald, production coordinator.
“Their job is to find these homeowners,” Fitzgerald said Tuesday by phone from Colorado. “They start in the city by calling historical societies, chambers of commerce, and getting the numbers of people who might know of someone.”
High Noon Entertainment produces “If Walls Could Talk” for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based HGTV, which also airs such home-centered shows as “Design on a Dime,” “Designing for the Sexes” and “House Hunters.” Mike Siegel hosts the show, which finds stories in old heirlooms.
“It’s like we’re looking for a mystery,” Hayward said. “We’re looking to show things that people find in their homes that gives clues about the previous owners.”
Siegel actually goes on location for some of the shoots, but not the one in Fairmont, Fitzgerald said.
“This one is not a ‘host rep’ show, so there are just two people, one camera and one producer,” Fitzgerald said. “The ones where the host are involved are a little bit longer.”
That means that the segment shot in Fairmont will be approximately three minutes of a half-hour show, while two other segments will be more in-depth. A fourth segment will be shorter like the one featuring Shaw house.
To get the three minutes of footage, freelancers Hayward and Dawson spent a good part of Tuesday morning and afternoon filming the Shaws, as well as Mike’s mother, Rhoda Shaw Ping, who donned an old black dress and portrayed Thelma sewing at an antique machine and walking about the house.
Hayward said Dawson would shoot three or four 40-minute reels before the day was done. They will submit the footage to High Noon Entertainment where the segment will be completed, and host Siegel will do a voice-over. None of the other segments have been completed yet, so an air date has not been set. The show airs at 11 p.m. Sundays and again at 3 a.m. Mondays.
Although Hayward never had shot an episode of “If Walls Could Talk,” Dawson has. He noted that the Shaw house stacks up with others in the series and the fact that Mike Shaw has memories of his Aunt Thelma helps set them apart.
“A lot of times, we find people who have discovered stuff from a family, but it’s not their family,” Dawson said. “I think it’s really cool that it’s his family.”
The Shaws did go to the Marion County Historical Society and Museum to learn more about Harry, Victor and Thelma after they bought the house. Harry was “an outstanding trial lawyer” before he became a judge, Mike Shaw said, and bought a lot of land during the Depression. He also learned that Thelma had been a great seamstress and an excellent public speaker. She never had children but maintained her home, where she slept in a single bed in one of the several second-floor rooms.
“She was devoted to this house,” Mike Shaw said.
If walls could talk, “They would probably tell you a lot of things,” he continued. Thelma “was very social. She had a lot of social receptions here.”
And if her Amelia Earhart luggage could talk, the retro, boxy pieces might have a tale to tell as well, as Thelma traveled the world.
Russia, China, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Hawaii and all over the United States were some of the places Shaw could recall his aunt visiting.
“She also went on a cruise in Alaska for a week,” he said.
Hayward, who claims a sensitivity to spirits, had a good feeling as she walked around the home on Tuesday.
“This house has a happy feeling,” she said. “If Thelma is here, I think she’s pleased that we’re showing it off. It’s very peaceful.”

Mary Wade Burnside writes for the Times West Virginian in Fairmont, W.Va.