For some Deep South migrants, Wilson County was but a waystop. This effulgent Pittsburgh Courier piece touches on Lucinda Jones Harper‘s time in Wilson. The timeline is not entirely clear, but it appears she and her husband Charles H. Harper arrived in 1915 from Montrose, Laurens County, Georgia, and left for Pittsburgh about ten years later.

Pittsburgh Courier, 16 May 1964.

The 1920 census of Wilson shows the Harpers at 811 East Nash Street, living next door to Sallie Barbour‘s family. Their first four children were born in Wilson. Son Walter Harper, who became a famed Pittsburgh jazz musician, was the first born up North.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: house carpenter Charlie Harper, 29; wife Lucenda, 27; children Charlie Jr., 2, and Elizabeth, 1; and cousin Freddie Asbel, 19.