Ann Peace started tattooing in 1945 after a chance encounter with her future husband Eddie in a luncheonette in Jackson, Mississippi. After marrying, the young couple followed the southern Carnival wheels, tattooing customers who attended the seasonal rural county fairs. For a young southern women of the time, Ann's new vocation challenged the conservative values she had been brought up to respect, but she pursued her new life with interests and enthusiasm. The options were limited for tattooers during the 1940's and 50's. The art form of tattooing existed somewhere between a past time and a profession- there was little interests in it outside the carnival or military setting. Ann and Eddie gradually grew tired of the rough demands of carnival life that required a constant reshuffling of locations, friends and possessions. They looked to settle down with their craft in a shop where they could start a more predictable life for themselves .

Throughout the Korean war years, The naval and army bases of the mid atlantic united states became economic areas of dependable commerce. Uncle Sam flooded these communities with thousands of recruits who followed the lead of the enlisted generations before them, spending money in a mad search for what could be their last good time. Honky Tonk areas sprang up outside the gates of many of the larger military bases, in answer to the call to entertain and distract the young soldiers who were on their way to war.

Migrant tattooers in a search of a steady buck scrambled between the large military bases of the mid west and east and west coasts looking for a prime location to establish a shop. During the first years of the 50's, Ann and Eddie traveled the states of Virginia and North Carolina in hopes of finding a location that could guarantee a steady flow of skin and income. They settled briefly in Norfolk, Virginia where the innovated tattooer August Cap Coleman had been working since world war 1. During the 1st half of the 21st century, Coleman was literally revolutionizing tattooing from his small narrow shop on Main street. His knowledge of the tattoo machine and artistic sensibility was winning the respect and admiration of tattooers who chanced upon it. Gradually, it pushed aside any competing tattoo system, as it changed the look of American tattooing for the better.

In Norfolk, Ann and Eddie were impressed with Coleman's art work and mechanics, they became friends with Coleman and adopted his innovations realizing that they would ensure their success as tattooers. Until Coleman, most tattoo work was characterized by scratchy looking hit and miss art work that did not last in the skin. Throughout the 1930's. 40's and 50's, tattooers along the east coast like Ann and Eddie adapted their technique and followed Coleman's lead, because of his simple well defined designs combined with his mechanics.

After their initial experience with Coleman, Ann and Eddie traveled from Norfolk to the military town of Jacksonville, North Carolina to work on the marines from camp LeJeune. Paul Rogers and Latham Connolly were also in town capitalizing on the bloated military of the Korean war. They had settled earlier in Jacksonville after their apprenticeships with Coleman in the late 40's. Eventually, Huck Spaulding came to town and all combined, Ann and Eddie, Huck, Paul and Latham- to become the core of an east coast cadre of tattooers who worked in the influential Coleman style that was reshaping American tattoo. In Jacksonville, Ann and Eddie continued to gather and impressive collection of designs as well as experience and expertise. In 1950, they moved to Portsmouth, Virginia for 11 years before they finally settled in Augusta, Georgia in 1962 to tattoo the young men who were on their way to battle the "Domino Effect" in Vietnam.

I graduated from high school in 1943. I worked for 2 years as a waitress, then i met Eddie, and we got married. Eddie came to the restaurant where i was working to get something to eat. I didn't think he had very much money so i fixed him a hamburger and he ate it. He wanted to know if he could take me home that night, and i said yes-so he did. The next day we left and got married. We both tattooed until 1992, so that would be 47 years of tattooing. I was from Jackson, Alabama. Eddie was traveling with a carnival and came through the town where i was working, and that's where we met.Would you believe we never had a date? It was love at first sight. We traveled with the carnival's for a year or 2 in 1945 and 46, and then we started to look for a place to settle down. You had to break down and set up every few days. It was a hard life.

Eddie was born in Cedartown, Georgia, it was down below Atlanta. He went into the merchant marine for over 11 years. During that time when he would come home, he would go to Beaumont, Texas, everyone called him "Tex". When he left Portsmouth, Virginia, he said, 'I am going to get rid of that name...it has got to go! So from the time we left Portsmouth and came here to Augusta all these years everybody called him, "Eddie boy..He hated that name Tex.

He had started to tattoo in his teens, he learned on himself. He used to tell me that he had 5 brothers and no sisters. He had a guitar and he swapped it for a tattoo machine. He used to get on his moms back porch and tattoo everybody-so he more or less learned on his own, this was in the early 30's in Cedartown. He just stuck with it and started tattooing with the carnivals. He tattooed quite a few years with the carnivals before we got married. When we married we more or less quit the carnivals. Thats when we started to look for a place to open up a shop.

Our first shop was in Blackstone, Virginia. It was a very small town but it had an army camp and we did real good. We first settled in Key West, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, and Pensacolla. Florida. From there we went to Corpus Christi, Texas, and tattooed there for a couple of years, this was in the early 50's. Most of the time, we were following the military. We would usually set  up in a town because there was a military base there. The first military people that we followed were during the Korean war and then the Vietnam war.

I was probably one of the only women tattooing during that period. Now it seems that women have begun to get into it, but i was the only women tattoo artist that i knew of for a long time. Military designs basically stayed the same over the years. We brought our designs from place to place- we knew the boys would like them. When the military boys came in to get tattoos, they liked getting tattooed  by a women-they sure did! I drew up about 60 sheets of flash that we used to have on a wall that was over 40 feet long. In those days we got our equipment from Percy Waters, when he quit tattooing, he sold us all of his equipment that he had at the time. He had a little trunk which he tattooed out of. Coleman also knew where to get a lot of equipment also. Then we went to Portsmouth then we cam to Augusta..

We tattooed in Norfolk, Virginia for a while then we went across the river to Portsmouth. We stayed there for 11 years. They closed Norfolk to tattooing in 1950- that's when we went to Portsmouth.

Coleman quit tattooing for a few years when they closed Norfolk. When he started back again, that's when he came to our shop to work with us in Portsmouth. He had a little jeep that he would drive to his place on the Elizabeth river to Norfolk. From there, he would park it with his dog in it. Then he would catch the ferry boat over to Portsmouth. The dog would keep an eye on his jeep.

Coleman always drew up all of his designs. We got a lot of our designs from him. He really knew what it took to make a design. He understood how to reduce a design down to the essentials- but it still looked good! Before him, everything looked one way or another- Nobody had made a tattoo look like Coleman's. When he came along, little by little, people saw it and liked it. He could do freehand work, a lot of times he didn't use  a stencil. They would tell him what they wanted and he would just start to tattoo the design on them,,,he was a natural artist.

We tattooed before the 50's in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Carolina Slim came there and tattooed with us at Fort Bragg, he was a very good tattoo artist. He had tattooed with Coleman and was pretty much the same kind of person that Coleman was. He used to sleep on the floor and he would go to these places that sold canned goods from burned out stores. The labels of the cans would be off and he didn't know what was in it. Both he and Coleman would just grab a can and open it and eat whatever it was.

One time in Fayetteville, i fixed a real good dinner and Coleman and Slim came over to eat with us. They both got real sick because they were not used to eating real food! They told us that the food was to rich for them. Coleman and Slim would both sleep on the floor in our tattoo shop in Norfolk. They would spread a piece of newspaper down on the floor and go to sleep. No one ever tried to figure them out, they would just shake their heads.

Johnny Walker also worked with us in Portsmouth. Everybody seemed to hate that guy,,he was not a nice person but he was a good artist, Eddie taught him how to tattoo. Eddie was a pilot and Johnny was a pilot so Eddie told Johnny that he would teach him how to tattoo if he gave him some good pointers on flying. He and his wife were a lot of trouble. She was involved with another man. Johnny went to Hawaii to tattoo with Jerry Collins and then he came back to work with us again in Portsmouth.

It was hard in those days to get equipment. We knew a guy named Jonesy and we would get stuff from him. We also got stuff from Bert Grimm and Owen Jensen. We always used either bill Jones machines or Percy Waters.

We used to work in Clarksville, Tennessee. We would close early on Saturday afternoons and drive to the Grand Ole Opry  and then we would go to Earnest Tubb's record shop for a show. We were also very good friends with Hank Williams and his family. When Hank died, Momma Williams gave us hanks horse. We went up to get it and brought the horse back to Portsmouth and kept him for a long time.

For a while, we tattooed for the mob in Chicago. They made you use all of their equipment and inks. They kept your money and they would pay you every weekend. Everybody worked on State street. Ernie Sutton worked with Sailor Bill Killingsworth. The men in charge used to beat Sailor Bill up with bats because he wouldn't pay them any money. They tore up Tats Thomas and his shop also for not paying up at the end of every month. The only good thing about working for the mob back then is that they would not let anyone rob you or mess with you or they would give them a good beating. Just as long as you paid them up at the end of every month, you were good to go and didn't have to look over your shoulders all the time.

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                Ann Peace

           Eddie Peace