funeral

The funeral of Dr. J.P. Stanley of New Bern.

I came across this transcript of an article in the 14 July 1931  edition of The New Bernian in Afro-American Death Notices From Eastern North Carolina Newspapers 1859-1935, Berry Munson, editor:

An overwhelming crowd turned out Sunday to pay tribute of respect to the late Dr. Judge Pickett Stanley, whose funeral was conducted at St. Peters church on Sunday at 4 o’clock. Rev. H.R. Hawkins, pastor, officiated, assisted by the Rev. Maultsby, Branch, Sutton, Todd, Love, and Johnson. Resolutions from the church were read by Prof. W.S. Todd; there was a solo by Mrs. Ella Battle; statement from the family by Rev. W.F. Todd who also gave intimate remarks about the deceased. Rev. Hawkins preached from the text, “There is a time to die,” an eloquent discourse on the meaning of life and death. An impressive part of the service was the address by Col. J.H. Ward, commanding officer at U.S. Veterans hospital in Tuskegee where Dr. Stanley had worked for several years. He closed by reading  resolutions from the staff of the hospital. The following members of the medical profession were present from out of the city. Drs. Bynum, Harrison and Wright of Kinston; Drs. Delaney, Sebastian, Winston, and Fleming of Raleigh; Drs. Dilliard and Williams of Goldsboro; Dr. Battle of Greenville; Dr. Dudley of Veterans Hospital, Tuskegee. These with our local staff, Drs. Mann, Fisher, Munford, Martin, Davies, Alston and Hill were honorary pall-bearers. The active pallbearers were I.H. Smith, Guy Howard, Jessie Pearson, W.S. Todd, W.T. Lewis, L.C. Starkey and Ambrose Harget. Other visitors were W.C. Redding of Kinston; Mr. and Mrs. E.W. Fisher and Camillus Darden of Wilson; Miss O.L. Bigsby of Tuskegee; Miss Jessie Williams and friends of Goldsboro and Dr. and Mrs. Bynum of Kinston. Interment was in the family plot in Greenwood cemetery.

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Friends with Wilson ties were:

What might have been.

A post office custodian by day, African-American photographer Richard S. Roberts maintained a studio in Columbia, South Carolina’s segregated business district. Between 1920 and 1936, he created a prodigious visual archive of Black life in the city.

Roberts captured the arresting image below circa 1926. The undertaker firm is believed to be Manigault-Gaten-Williams, and it is reasonable to think that a high-end Darden and Sons funeral in Wilson might have looked much the same way.

Treat yourself to A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts 1920-1936, an extraordinary compilation of this artist’s work. I am painfully reminded of the lost oeuvre of George W. “Picture-Taking” Barnes, Ray J. Dancy, John H.W. Baker, and other Wilson photographers.

The burial of Jonah Pitt.

Wilson Daily Times, 17 February 1923.

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Jonah Pitt’s military service card.

On 10 November 1921, Jonah Pitts, 24, of Wilson, son of Haywood Becton and Martha Pitts, married Annie Mae Dillard, 18, of Wilson, daughter of Abe Dillard and Sallie D. White. Chesley White applied for the license, and Missionary Baptist minister John A. Mebane performed the ceremony at 206 Pender Street, Wilson, in the presence of James Crocker, Nancy Crocker, and Rosetta Bunn.

Jonah Pitt Jr. died 4 February 1922 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 3 February and lived only 20 hours; his parents were Jonah Pitt and Annie Mae Dillard; and he lived at 604 Spring.

Jonah Pitt died 14 February 1923 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 18 July 1897 in Wilson to Haywood Beckwith and Martha Pitt; was married to Annie Mae Pitts; lived on Vance Street; and worked as a cook. Elsie Pitt was informant.

World War I Service Cards 1917-1919, http://www.ancestry.com.

Sunday funerals.

Wilson Daily Times, 4 May 1935.

Presumably, the “secular organizations” holding funeral parades and services on Sunday were fraternal groups, masonic orders, and social clubs.

——

The death of Charlie Thomas.

Wilson Daily Times, 21 August 1945.

Wilson Daily Times, 22 August 1945.

 

Wilson Daily Times, 28 August 1945.

Charlie Thomas was a longtime employee of the Gold family of newspaper publishers. Though his family had a plot in Odd Fellows — his wife Sarah Best Thomas and son Louis Thomas were buried there — his obituary reports that he was buried in Rest Haven. His death certificate, on the other hand, lists Rountree Cemetery is his place of burial (which meant, of course, Odd Fellows Cemetery) and, in fact, there is a marker in Odd Fellows engraved with his name and the order’s triple links.

Lane Street Project: the funeral of young Irma Vick.

A contributor who wishes to remain anonymous has made these incredible images available to Black Wide-Awake. They depict the funeral of Samuel and Annie Washington Vick‘s daughter Irma Vick, who died in October 1921 while a 16 year-old student in Asheville, North Carolina. Until recently, her large concrete headstone was the only marker visible in the Vick family plot. These two photographs are the only photographs we have to date that show Odd Fellows as an active cemetery or capture an early 20th-century funeral. (Per her death certificate, Irma’s body was prepared by Murrough’s, a Black Asheville funeral home, but Darden & Sons likely handled her burial.)

The first image depicts mounds of flowers heaped upon the grave, including a standing wreath arrangement (topped by a flying dove?), two baskets, and a sash whose visible lettering spells CL MBERS CLUB. Though her headstone had not yet been placed, the wreath marks the top of the grave. However, it is difficult to orient the angle of the photograph precisely. In the background, at least six grave markers are visible, none of which correlate immediately with known markers in Odd Fellows or adjacent Rountree Cemetery. (The tall, narrow shape suggests the white marble stones found in such abundance in Odd Fellows that were likely provided to members and their families as death benefits.)

The second image shows mourners standing at Irma Vick’s graveside: family friend Camillus L. Darden, an unidentified woman, Irma’s parents Samuel and Annie Vick, perhaps her brother Daniel L. Vick (though this man seems to be middle-aged), and an unidentified young woman. The obelisk visible over Darden’s shoulder is Wiley Oates‘ beautiful sandstone marker. It is difficult to be absolutely certain, but this detail suggests that the photographer was standing with his or her back to Rountree Cemetery, facing roughly south-southwest. (This assumes that the photograph is not image-reversed. The present orientation of Irma’s headstone suggests that this may, in fact, be a mirror image. Her marker faces southwest, as do all others in the cemetery. In the photo, however, the head of the grave (if the photo were rotated to the align with the cemetery’s axis, faces northeast.) In any case, we have not found the large headstone at the right side of the photo, nor what appears to be a flat marble vault slab just beside it.

I am honored to have been entrusted to share these photographs. Thank you.

The funeral of Dr. William A. Mitchner.

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Wilson Daily Times, 10 November 1941.

The funeral of Charles H. Darden: “The church was crowded and all those who wanted could not get into the house.”

Though they got his name wrong, the Daily Times ran this article on the funeral of Charles Henry Darden.

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Wilson Daily Times, 30 March 1931.

  • Charles H. Darden
  • Ruth Cobb — Cobb was a public school teacher.
  • Rev. J.E. Kennedy — John E. Kennedy, pastor of Saint John A.M.E. Zion church.
  • Rev. Fred M. Davis — long-time pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church and, in the 1930s, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church.
  • Dr. W.J. Trent — William J. Trent, president of Livingstone College, an A.M.E. Zion-affiliated institution.
  • John H. Clark — Clark, an Episcopalian and prominent community member
  • S.H. Vick — Samuel H. Vick, Presbyterian, a businessman who, with Darden, was the most prominent African-American citizen of Wilson in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Col. John F. Bruton
  • Fred Swindell — a white lawyer afforded the honorific “Mister,” which was denied Darden (despite all other encomiums) Clark, and Vick.

 

The Mitchell family reach a compromise.

3 12 1938

Pittsburgh Courier, 12 March 1938.

For more about Rev. Richard A.G. Foster, see here and here and here.

Georgia Farmer Mitchell died 18 February 1938 at Mercy Hospital. Per her death certificate, she was a 15 year-old school girl; was born in Wilson to Floyd Mitchell and Lucy Farmer, both of Wilson County; and resided at 409 South Warren Street. She died of acute appendicitis and an intestinal blockage.

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Rev. Foster, probably in the late 1930s or early ’40s, perhaps at Yale University, his alma mater.

Photograph courtesy of Sheila Coleman-Castells.