So smart that she skipped a grade at Vick Elementary, Hattie Margaret Henderson Ellis graduated from C.H. Darden High School in 1953 and Hampton Institute in 1957 (where she pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and established a family legacy). She received a graduate degree from Boston University and spent decades as a guidance counselor in Wilson County high schools.
Aunt Margaret is the youngest and the last surviving of my grandmother’s children, and we wish her a happy and love-filled 90th birthday!
This is who is scouring the internet, poking through the archives, and interviewing the elders.
This chunky toddler in knee-high socks, asleep in her high chair, gripping a chicken leg, is grateful to greet the risen sun on this 62nd turn in its orbit — sound in mind and body, nimble of toe and wit, surrounded by love, and always, always, always ready to put in work.
Black Wide-Awake is the gift that ricochets from me to you and back, and I am especially thankful on my birthday.
Sending extra-special 100th birthday wishes to the beautiful, warm, charming Amanda Gray Mitchell Cameron!
Mrs. Cameron lives independently on the land she grew up on and is always so generous with her time and memories of the Elm City area, Frederick Douglass High School, and her family’s fight for educational and economic opportunity. She is a treasure!
My mother is a native of Newport News, Virginia, but has spent almost three-quarters of her life in Wilson. I often rely on her to clarify my recollections or test tentative connections I make in my research for this blog. She introduced me to museums and historic sites and gladly fed my very early appetite for reading. I’m not sure what Black Wide-Awake would look like without her deep influence, and I ask you to join me in wishing Beverly Allen Henderson a wonderful 87th birthday. I love you, Ma!
Today we celebrate the 97th birthday of Donald Lee Woodard Sr.!
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In the 1930 census of Eureka township, Wayne County: farm laborer Marcelius Woodard, 36; wide Adlonia, 26, farm laborer; sons Andrew, 6, Roscoe, 5, Donie L., 3, and Kelvin [Calvin], 1; and boarders Leslie Malone, 30, farm laborer, and Nannie Hastings, 48.
In the 1940 census of Faison township, Duplin County, N.C.: farmer Marcellus Woodard, 46; wife Adlonia, 35; and children Andrew 17, Rosker, 15, Donie, 13, Calvin, 11, Rosevelt, 9, Mary, 7, Margree, 4, and Jessie James, 5 months.
In 1944, Donald Lee Woodard registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County.
On 28 December 1949, Donald Lee Woodard, 22, of Walstonsburg, married Hazel Artis, 20, of Stantonsburg in Wilson, Wilson County.
In the 1950 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: hired farm laborer Clinton Artis, 50; wife Mattie, 45; children Charles E., 19, lumber company laborer, Appie Louise, 17, cook, Constance B., 15, maid, William H., 13, Cleveland O., 10, Harley M., 7, Douglas, 5, Lois Jean, 3, and Carolyn E., 2; daughter Mary Hazel Woodard, 21; son-in-law Donald Woodard, 23, lumber company employee; and granddaughter Brenda Joyce Woodard, 1.
Many thanks to Portia Newman for sharing this joyful photo of her grandfather. We wish him so many more fantastic birthdays!
My father had a brief career as a journalist his sophomore year in high school covering Darden football games for the Wilson Daily Times under the byline “Skip Henderson.” By his senior year, he was editor of Darden’s yearbook. His writing career ended there, but he spent the rest of his educational life in sports, as a player, coach, and mentor.
Rederick C. Henderson would have turned 90 today. I miss him to my core and not a day passes that I don’t think of him and give thanks for all poured into those he loved.
Wilson Daily Times, 29 September 1950.
Wilson Daily Times, 27 October 1950.
Editor-in-chief R.C. Henderson, front, with some of the annual staff. From “The Trojan,” the yearbook of C.H. Darden High School, 1952.
