Pittsburgh Courier, 9 October 1943.
- James Smith
- Freddie Smith
Month: September 2018
Snaps, no. 42: the Reid brothers.
This photo was posted to Pinterest with the title “Reid boys from Wilson NC.” It appears to date from the 1940s or thereabouts. Can anyone identify which set of Reid brothers, or perhaps cousins, is depicted?
Colored cafe.
Wilson Daily Times, 31 May 1948.
Wrote Roy Taylor in My City, My Home: “And Negroes congregated en masse on Barnes Street in the block in which P.L. Woodard is located. It wasn’t that they had to gather there, for they had the privilege of meeting at any place in town, just as did the whites. They liked that area, and too, it was in close proximity to several hot dog joints and other eating places. Few white people were seen in that block on Saturday, and few Negroes were seen on Nash Street. It was a matter of the two races choosing to be with their own kind.”
Taylor’s take on the privileges and choices of legally sanctioned and enforced segregation is ridiculous, but this passage does offer context for the location of Gus Gliarmis’ Star Cafe on the southern edge of downtown, far from Wilson’s African-American neighborhoods in the 1940s.
Wedding scenes.
Pittsburgh Courier, 3 January 1942.
Robert E. Vick, son of Samuel H. and Annie Washington Vick, was a groomsman in the Atlanta wedding of Alice Clarissa Clement, whose father Rufus E. Clement was president of Atlanta University, and Robert Joseph Foster of Monroe, Louisiana. Vick is seated bottom right in the right-hand photograph.
Many thanks to S.M. Stevens for the referral.
504 South Lodge Street.
This house is not within the bounds of East Wilson Historic District. However, South Lodge Street — below the warehouse district — has been an African-American residential area since the turn of the twentieth century.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 506 [sic] Lodge Street, cafe proprietor Jessie Strickland, 28, and wife Viola, 27, and roomers Mack Strickland, 18, transfer truck driver, and James Johnson, 20, guano company laborer.
In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Strickland Jesse (c; Viola) propr Strickland Cafe h 504 S Lodge
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 504 Lodge Street, owned and valued at $4000, Jesse Strickland, 46, and wife Viola, 37. Their occupations are listed as farm laborer and “manufacturing [illegible]/own plant.” However, it appears that entries are off by a line, and should read “manufacturing [illegible]/own plant” and cook for private family.
In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Strickland Jesse (c; Viola) 504 S Lodge
In a familiar tale of woe, the Stricklands defaulted on their mortgage, and Wilson Home & Loan Association advertised the property for auction.
Wilson Daily Times, 10 November 1930.
Jessie Strickland died 18 March 1932 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 40 years old; was born in Wilson to Mose Farmer and Hannah Strickland; was a clerk in a store; and lived at Spring Street. Informant was Viola Strickland, 504 South Lodge.
In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mable Annie (c) maid h 504 S Lodge
In the 1947 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mable Annie (c) h 504 S Lodge
Photograph by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2017.
Studio shots, no. 90: Edna E. Gaston.
On the reverse: “Photo. North Carolina. Black girl and doll carriage. The girl’s name is Edna Earl Gaston. She was the niece of John Clark who was a founder of St Mark’s Episcopal Church. He was also the first Black mail carrier in Wilson, North Carolina. 1925.”
In fact, Edna Earline Gaston was the daughter of Albert Sessle Gaston of Wilson and Annie House Gaston of Moore County, North Carolina. John H. Clark was her great-uncle, brother of Albert Gaston’s mother Ella Clark Gaston.
——
In the 1900 census of Town of Wilson, Wilson County: Ella Gaston, 30, divorced, with sons Ralph, 10, and Albert, 2. [Also in the 1900 census of Town of Wilson, Wilson township, North Carolina: 44 year-old barber John Gaston, [second] wife Sabrina [Sattena] 22, and children Theodore, 13, Cicero, 10, George, 8, and Caroline, 2 months. John A. Gaston was Albert Gaston’s father.]
In 1918, Albert Gaston registered for the World War I draft in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Per his registration card, he was born 16 August 1897 in Wilson, N.C.; resided at 2105 Nassau Street, Philadelphia; worked as a longshoreman; and his nearest relative was Anna Gaston.
In the 1920 census of Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania: at 2105 Nassau Street, building laborer Albert Gaston, 22; wife Anne T., 23; daughter Edna E., 1; lodger Harry Jenkins, 19, a laundry laborer; and mother Hellen Hunton [Ella Clark Gaston Hinton], 53. All were born in North Carolina.
Shortly after the census, the Gastons returned to North Carolina, where they took positions in Annie H. Gaston’s home county. On 28 April 1921, The Moore County News of Carthage printed principal Albert Gaston’s address to the Shady Grove colored school.
By October 1921, Gaston had take over as head of the struggling Addor school. Per this 1997 National Register of Historic Places nomination report, the Gastons began an energetic campaign to raise money for a Rosenwald School, and the Lincoln Park school near Pinebluff was the result.
Albert Sessel Gaston registered for the World War II draft in 1942 in Raeford, Hoke County, North Carolina. Per his registration card, he was born 15 August 1897 in Wilson; was employed by the Board of Education in Raeford; and his contact was Annie L. Gaston, 119 Lincoln Street, Hampton, Virginia.
Annie Lillian Gaston died 2 June 1952 at Mercy Hospital in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 17 July 1896 in Moore County to John House and Maggie Gunter; was a schoolteacher; and was married. Albert Gaston was informant.
Per the Social Security Death Index, Albert Gaston died November 1979 and Edna Gaston Coles died 25 July 1999, both in Philadelphia.
Courtesy of Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077); collection guide available online at http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/P0077/.
Organizing tobacco workers.
The obituary of Bessie Parker Hargrave.
Unattributed death notice for Bessie Parker Hargrave, May 1971.
Per the 1900 census, Bessie Parker was the cousin, rather than sister, of the Vick siblings.
Signatures, no. 5.
Signatures are often-overlooked scraps of information that yield not only obvious clues about literacy, but also subtleties like depth and quality of education and preferred names, spellings and pronunciations. They are also, in original documents, tangible traces of our forebears’ corporality — evidence that that they were once here.
This is the fifth in a series of posts featuring the signatures of men and women born before 1900, men and women who could not take even a basic education for granted.
- George Washington Joyner (1875-?), 1918, World War I draft registration card, Wilson.
- Alexander Barnes Joyner (1896-?), 1917, World War I draft registration card, Wilson; 1942, World War II draft registration card, New York, New York.
- William M. King, 1912, the marriage license of Banks Blow and Mag Parker, Wilson.
- J. James D. Reid (1872-ca.1961), 1907, the marriage license of Frank S. Hargrave and Bessie Parker, Wilson.
- Charles Battle (1842-1910), 1884, marriage license of Cain Artis and Margaret Edmundson Barnes, Wilson County.
The obituary of J.D. Reid.
This undated and unattributed newspaper clipping is posted to Pinterest. J.D. Reid apparently did not return to Wilson to live permanently after the Commercial Bank incident. He died in late January 1962 in Washington, D.C.