Wilson Daily Times, 9 March 1948.
Wilson Daily Times, 10 March 1948.
Alfonzo Ruffin died 7 March 1948 at Mercy Hospital. Per his death certificate, he was born 19 February 1942 in Wilson to Joseph Haney and Queenie Ruffin; lived at 409 Young Alley; and was buried in William Chapel Cemetery. Queenie Barnes was informant.
I know nothing about it other than it is believed to be an African-American church in Wilson County.
Benjamin Woodard was not the only practitioner in town.
The 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County, lists Joseph Smith, 49, widower, as a “doctor of roots.”
Wilson Daily Times, 31 March 1945.
The War Manpower Commission was a World War II agency tasked with balancing the labor needs of agriculture, industry, and the military. Though W.M.C. leadership urged employers to hire without discrimination in defense production, an ad specifically targeting “colored men” likely did not lead to high-paying work.
Though now gone from all but a few industries, porters were once ubiquitous in the service landscape. Responsible for everything from carrying bags or packages to cleaning common spaces to fixing minor maintenance issues, porters were early customer service representatives of a sort, tasked with ensuring smooth public-facing operations in all manner of work settings. The job was almost exclusively reserved for African-American men and generally demanded a facade of deference (or even subservience) that not all were able to consistently display. That said, positions as porters were sought-after as relatively well-paid, clean, and safe, and men who worked these jobs often headed solidly middle-class Black households.
Below, a running list of pre-World War II porters in Wilson:
Wilson Daily Times, 22 March 2024.
Earlier this month, I posted about an email I sent to Councilmember Gillettia Morgan with questions about activity near the Lane Street Project cemeteries. Assistant City Manager Rodger Lentz quickly responded to my question about the city’s comprehensive plan. Last week, the Times addressed the work Piedmont Natural Gas is carrying out in the elbow of Bishop L.N. Forbes Street.
P.N.G.’s response to the paper’s inquiry is somewhat reassuring, and a drive-through of the area reveals the work is focused a few hundred yards west of Vick Cemetery behind a screen of trees bordering Lane Park. However, I’m puzzled by the assertion that “Piedmont Natural Gas updated and replaced existing natural gas pipelines in November” when the line that runs alongside Vick has not been touched. This stretch of line is of particular importance to us, as wooden markers placed last summer indicate graves may extend into this area.
Citizens, please make it your business to roll up and down Bishop L.N. Forbes Street and lay eyes on the landscape. Let us know what you see, and we’ll try to get answers.
Wilson Daily Times, 29 March 1950.
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Plummer Columbus Alston registered for the World War II draft in Nash County in 1943. Per his registration card, he was born 27 November 1925 in Wilson; lived at Route 2, Elm City, Nash County; his contact was Joe Alston; and he worked for Joe Alston.
Plummer Columbus Alston, 23, of Nash County, N.C., son of Joseph and Norma Davis Alston, married Geraldine Wilkins, 19, of Wilson County, daughter of Willie Wilkins and Lucille Powell Wilkins, on 8 December 1948 in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister C.T. Jones performed the ceremony in the presence of Rev. H.W. Farmer, Louise Bullock, and Mary J. Lassiter.
Plummer C. Alston died 26 March 1950 near Elm City, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was born 29 November 1925 in Wilson County to Joe and Nancy Alston; was married; worked in farming; and was a World War II veteran. He was buried in the Alston Cemetery, Nash County, N.C.
Lemore Hannah (1908-1946).
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In the 1910 census of Ridge township, Williamsburg County, South Carolina: David Hanna, 29; wife Ollie, 21; children Mitchel, 4, Lemore, 2, and Drusilla, 4 months; and widow Sue A. Hannah, 43.
In the 1920 census of Lake township, Florence County, South Carolina: farmer Davis Hannah, 33, widower; children Michael, 13, Leemore, 12, Drucilla, 10, Alafair, 8, Mary, 7, Aaron, 5, Nathaniel, 3, and Ruth, 6 months; and mother Susana, 64.
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hannah Lemore (c) h 404 Manchester
On 12 September 1929, Lee Moore Hannah, 21, married Almeater Morgan, 16, in Wilson.
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 600 Stantonsburg Street, rented for $12/month, Calvin Morgan, 52, laborer at Colored High School; wife Almeta, 40; sons Willie, 23, tobacco factory laborer, Surrender, 21, radio company laborer, and Calvin Jr., 17, bellboy at Cherry Hotel; Almeta Hannah Jr., 16; son Fred D. Morgan, 14; daughters Mary A., 9, Sarah J., 8, Rubie, 7, and Ninie L., 3; and son Lindberg, 2; daughter-in-law Eloise Morgan, 18; and son-in-law Lemore Hannah, 22, fertilizer factory laborer.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Lemore Hannah, 30; sister Ruth Hannah, 20; and daughters Ollie, 7, and Camilla, 5.
In 1940, Lemore Hannah registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 31 July 1908 in Lake City, S.C.; lived at 709 East Vance Street Wilson; his contact was sister Ruth Hannah; and he worked for W.L. Wooten, 417 East Nash Street.
Leamore Hannah died 16 November 1946 in Wake Forest, Wake County, North Carolina. Per his death certificate, he was born 38 years old; lived at 540 East Nash Street, Wilson; was a widower; was born in South Carolina to Davis Hannah and Ollie Brown; and worked as a taxi driver. Mitchell Hannah, 509 Moore Street, was informant.
Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com user 806gayst.
I recently was gifted a copy of Phoebe Ann Pollitt’s African American Hospitals in North Carolina: 39 Institutional Histories, 1880-1967. Reading the Wilson entry made me realize I have not adequately set out here the ownership timeline of the hospital commonly thought of just as “Mercy Hospital.” What we think of as a single institution actually comprised three separate hospitals that operated on the same site and mostly in the same building.
(1) In 1905, Dr. Frank S. Hargrave opened a private hospital in a 16-room house on East Green Street.
(2) In 1913, Dr. Hargrave partnered with Samuel H. Vick and J.D. Reid to establish Wilson Hospital and Tubercular Home in a brand-new, purpose-built brick building on the site of the old wooden house. In 1915, Wilson’s Board of Aldermen voted to contribute a small monthly amount to the hospital’s budget. The hospital — the tubercular home was never built — struggled financially and went into foreclosure in 1924. Pollitt’s timeline and facts are a little off concerning this phase of the hospital’s history. She says Commercial Bank failed in the late 1920s “due to the nationwide financial hardships of the Great Depression” and that Dr. Hargrave left Wilson for New Jersey in 1924 after losing the hospital. Hargrave did leave Wilson in 1924, but Commercial Bank did not fail until J.D. Reid and Henry S. Stanback severely and criminally mismanaged its deposits in 1929. Contemporary news accounts say the hospital J.D. Reid had kept the bank afloat with loan from the Commercial Bank secured by the hospital itself. When the bank collapsed, it dragged the hospital down, too.
(3) In 1930, white businessman Wade H. Gardner bought the hospital at auction, and a group of white doctors and businessmen, plus William Hines, set themselves up as trustees and administrators. They renamed it Mercy and commenced operation with city, county, and philanthropic support. Though the hospital’s ownership shifted a couple of times between private and public owners to render it eligible for major grants, Mercy operated continuously until 1964, when it was shuttered for good with the opening of a federally-funded, integrated hospital, Wilson Memorial. (I was born there just a few months before it closed.)
Another unexpected find among the World War I draft registration cards — a native of England! (Maybe.)
In 1917, Frederick DeLisle Pike was living in Wilson at 412 1/2 East Green Street and working as a barber for Garfield Ruffin a block away at 504 East Nash. He reported that he was a resident alien born in Southampton, England, and had spent three years in an English military band. He also stated that he was married. I don’t know when Pike arrived in Wilson, but he is not listed in the 1916 directory. He did not stay long.
In 1918, Pike registered for the draft again, this time in Richmond, Virginia. He reported then that he was born in 1885 (not 1887); lived at 107 West Duval, Richmond; worked as a barber for W.C. Scott at 4 North 9th Street; and his nearest relative was mother Sarah Anne Pike, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Pike’s whereabouts in 1920 are not clear, but he possibly was the Freeman F. Pike, 35, barber, who lodged in a home on Richmond’s West Clay Street and reported his birthplace as West Virginia.
In the 1923 Richmond city directory, barber Frederick Pike and wife Octavia Pike, a domestic, are listed at 615 North 6th Street. Their lives, though, were poised for dramatic change.
The 1927 city directory for Charlottesville, Virginia, shows this entry: Pike Fred L Rev (c; Octavia R) pastor Trinity Episcopal Church h 324 6th SW. How was Pike transformed from barber to Episcopal priest in that four years?
The change in Pike’s profession was permanent, even as other details shifted. In the 1930 census of Richmond, Virginia: at 116 East Leigh Street, Frederick D.L. Pike, 42, Episcopal clergyman; wife Octava, 31; and widowed mother-in-law Emma Robinson, 68. Pike reported that he was born in South America (!) and spoke Spanish as his first language.
By 1932, Pike was in northern Virginia. The 1932 city directory of Alexandria, Virginia, shows: Pike Fredk de L (c; Octavia R) pastor Meade Memorial Chapel h 818 Duke
A history of Meade Memorial written by David Taft Terry, “Community, Service, and Faith: Meade Church in the mid-20th Century,” briefly mentions Pike:
Beyond detailing Pike’s foundational role in developing lay leadership, this piece reveals he was trained at Petersburg, Virginia’s Bishop Payne Divinity School, graduating in 1930.
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 28 April 1934.
By 1935, the Pikes had shifted west to Charles Town, West Virginia, where the reverend led Saint Phillip’s.
Washington Tribune, 20 April 1935.
Baltimore Afro-American, 11 April 1936.
A marriage register column in the 3 May 1939 Northern Virginia Daily reported that “Frederick de Lisle-Pike, Charles Town, W.Va., Episcopal” had performed one of the ceremonies.
And then another leap: by 1941, the Pikes were in Oklahoma, where Rev. Pike was pastor of Saint Phillip in Muskogee and Saint Thomas in Tulsa. In 1942, Frederick de Lisle Pike registered for the World War II draft in Muskogee. Per his draft registration, he was born 28 August 1886 in Richmond, Virginia; lived at 310 North 11th Street; his contact was William P. Green, 503 North 9th; and he worked as a minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Oklahoma years were trying. Per documents posted by the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma Archives, Rev. Pike’s debts (and debt collectors) followed him from West Virginia, and another priest was assigned to oversee his spending. Notwithstanding, he made rash expenditures that drew the ire of his bishop — and his congregants began to complain of his “Masonic activities.” Rev. Pike held on, however, until mandatory retirement in 1954 at age 68.
Meanwhile, Rev. Pike’s wife Octavia found a position at Langston University, where she weathered her own storms.
The Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City, Okla.), 15 January 1949.
After retirement, Rev. Pike lived in a cottage on Langston’s campus, where he worked as Dean of Men in the education and social work departments. When he retired from Langston in 1961, the Pikes moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma, where he died impoverished in 1967.