Wilson Daily Times, 17 July 1897.
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In the 1900 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farmer Joe Batts, 35; wife Francis, 39; and children Thomas, 18, Oliver, 15, Martha, 11, Mary, 8, Luther, 3, Nora, 2, and Corda, 8 months.
explosion
Mother and child killed in oil can explosion.
Wilson Daily Times, 11 November 1921.
In 1917, Avery Johnson registered for the World War I draft in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Per his registration card, he was born 25 June 1891 in Marietta, N.C.; lived at 636 Green, Wilson; worked as a laborer for Worth Bros., Coatesville, Pennsylvania; and had a wife and one child.
In the 1920 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farmer Avery Johnson, 27; wife Carrie, 24; and children Evaline, 2, and John L., two months.
The child who died in the oil can explosion was a son, John Elry Johnson, not a daughter. He was two weeks past his second birthday.
Avery Johnson’s wife Carrie Wingate Johnson also succumbed to her injuries, after four days of suffering.
Stove explosion.
Household appliances created fearsome everyday hazards in early twentieth-century Wilson. A stove explosion shattered insurance agent Lee A. Moore‘s tibia and fibula at the ankle on 17 February 1948. The injury did not kill Moore, but doubtless undercut his ability to cope with chronic kidney disease. He died a week later.
A lamp explodes and — panic!
In which Rev. Fred M. Davis offers a dramatic telling of a lamp explosion during services at First Missionary Baptist Church. (With an appeal for donations tacked on.)
Raleigh Times, 12 July 1905.