The account of the annual lunch the Amos Hayes family hosted for the “help on the farm.” Hayes himself was a tenant farmer, renting his farm from Congressman Frederick A. Woodard, but he operated on a large scale and employed dozens of laborers. Sixty-seven attended the mid-day meal, 33 white and 34 black, seated separately at two long tables spread with “barbecue, chicken, pickles, bread, cake, and other good things to eat.”
Wilson Daily Times, 19 August 1910.
This photo is one of several illustrating a 1936 map of Wilson County distributed by the Wilson Chamber of Commerce and the Wilson County Board of Commissioners. (The original image from which the children on this postcard was taken is another of the map’s photos.)
The photograph in this advertisement for Bardin Brothers is undated, but it was published in the 1960 edition of Lee Woodard High School’s Panther’s Paw yearbook. Black Wide-Awake’s focus is pre-1950, but I am sharing as a rare image of African-Americans born early in the 20th century who lived and worked in rural Wilson County. I cannot identify any of the men and women depicted alongside members of the Bardin family. However, Bardin Brothers’ sweet potato farm-cum-gas station-and-grocery stood off Highway 117 Alternate South at Yank and Potato House Court Roads, just north of the town of Black Creek, and presumably these workers and/or customers lived in the neighboring community.
If you recognize anyone, please let me know.
Many thanks to Wayne Edwards for bringing this photo to my attention.