Ten days before her death, Mamie Tilghman Herring added a codicil to her 1932 will, leaving fifty dollars to her servant Sammie Roberson:

Mamie Herring was the widow of Dr. Benjamin S. Herring, a founder of Woodard-Herring Hospital. The family lived at 806 West Nash Street, and the 1930 census identifies Liza J. Jones, 32, as a live-in house servant. No servants are listed in the 1940 census of the household.

I have found two Sammie Robersons living in Wilson around 1940. One, who was white, worked as a dairy company salesman. It seems unlikely that he was Herring’s servant. The other appears in the 1940 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, on Elm City Road: Sammy Roberson, 21, farm laborer, whose wife was Annie Roberson, 19. It would be a little surprising for someone so young to have been left the type of bequests to long-time employees.