Henderson

In remembrance.

Except for his time in the Air Force and college, my father lived his entire life in Wilson. Three years ago tonight, he passed away here, at home, surrounded by his wife and daughters and granddaughter. He loved Wilson, and his stories were my early gateway to what would become Black Wide-Awake. I wish he’d had more time to understand and enjoy my posts and to know how deeply he continues to guide and influence me. Rest in power, Rederick C. Henderson.

The guardianship of the Henderson children.

In 1907, Samuel H. Vick was named guardian of the children of Sandy D. Henderson‘s children Maty J. Henderson, Charles J. Henderson, and Mollie Henderson.

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On 27 May 1897, Sandy Henderson, 40, married Mary Jane Taylor, 40, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister Fred M. Davis performed the ceremony at the A.M.E. Zion church. S.A. Smith, Charles H. Darden, and Wyatt Studaway were witnesses.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: hack driver Sa[illegible] Henderson, 54; wife Mary J., 40, restaurant keeper; and children Buxton, 19, hotel waiter, Leonidas F., 13, tobacco stemmer, Charles J.A.W., 9, and Mattie M.J., 7. [R. Buxton and Leonidas F. Taylor were Mary Henderson’s children by a previous marriage.]

In the 1908 Wilson, N.C., city directory: Henderson Charles (c) lab h 547 E Nash

On 14 January 1909, Fate Barnes, 22, of Wilson, married Mattie Henderson, 17, of Wilson, daughter of Sandy and Florence Henderson, in Wilson. Baptist minister Fred M. Davis performed the ceremony at the residence of Henderson’s guardian James Somerville in the presence of Rear Thomas, Malvinnie Rosser, and Delphia Ellis.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Viola Street, box factory laborer Fate Barnes, 23; wife Mattie, 19; brother Sam, 29, buggy factory laborer; sister-in-law Emma, 23, laundress; nephew William A., 4, and niece Annie, 5 months.

In 1917, Lafayette Barnes registered for the World War I draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 5 June 1887 in Elm City, N.C.; lived at 63[illegible] Nash Street; worked for C. Woodard as a drayman; and had a wife and child.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Fate Barnes, 33, drayman at wholesaler; wife Mattie, 29; children Charles, 8, and Elane, 7 months; and Sarah Taylor, 53, widow.

Mattie Barnes died 25 June 1936 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 44 years old; was born in Henderson, N.C., to Sandy Henderson of Henderson, N.C.; was married to Fate Barnes; lived at 717 East Green Street; and she was buried in Wilson [probably, Vick Cemetery.]

Wilson, North Carolina, Guardianship Records 1897-1905, http://www.familysearch.org. [Sidenote: Henderson is not a Wilson County name. African-American Hendersons in North Carolina generally have roots in one of three areas — Onslow County (like my family, which came to Wilson via Wayne County), Rowan County, and Vance County (like Sandy D. Henderson).]

In memoriam: Doris Lula Henderson Ward (1930-2025).

On 21 January 2025, Doris Lula Henderson Ward passed peacefully at her home in Wilson. She was 94 years old. Cousin Doris was the last surviving child of Jack Henderson and Pauline Artis Henderson.

In this photograph taken at my uncle Jesse A. Henderson‘s funeral in August 2005, Cousin Doris is fourth from right. With her passing, only the bookends remain. Rest in peace, Cousin Doris.

Cousins Hattie Henderson Ellis, Rederick C. Henderson, James Beasley, Mildred Henderson Hall, Doris Holt Beasley, Doris Henderson Ward, Louise Holt Tisdale, Margaret Holt Brown, Barbara Hall Jones.

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In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender Street, Alice Artis, 56; daughter Pauline Henderson, 39, household servant; granddaughters Bessie L., 23, hotel elevator girl, Alice, 20, household servant, Joyce, 18, household servant, Mildred, 16, and Doris, 10; and grandson Robert, 4.

Around 1945, Doris Henderson married Thomas Person Ward, who would go on to become a legendary gospel music disc jockey, promoter, and recording artist, as well as general manager of Wilson’s AM radio station WGTM.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 707 East Vance, Thomas Ward, 25, shoeshine boy at barbershop; wife Doris, 21; and children Doris Lee, 5, Merl, 4, and Purline, 1.

Doris H. Ward is survived by her children Doris Lee Ward Wilkins, Mary Lee Ward Miller, Thomas P. Ward Jr., James F. Ward, and Ray A. Ward, and many, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her husband and daughter Pearline Ward Hardy are deceased.

Top photo borrowed from obituary; bottom photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Funeral Program Friday: Bessie Henderson Smith (1917-1996).

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 318 Pender Street, Jack Henderson, truck driver, 38; wife Pauline, 31, and children Bessie, 12, Alic, 10, Joice, 8, Mildred, 6, and Archy, 4, listed in the household of mother-in-law Alic Artis, 49, private cook, paying $18/month rent.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender Street, Alice Artis, 56; daughter Pauline Henderson, 39, household servant; granddaughters Bessie L., 23, hotel elevator girl, Alice, 20, household servant, Joyce, 18, household servant, Mildred, 16, and Doris, 10; and grandson Robert [Bobby], 4.

Sisters Alice Henderson Mabin and Bessie Henderson Smith, Wilson, 1986.

Bessie Henderson Smith died 28 October 1996.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, 1986.

On his 90th birthday.

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.

Family ties, no. 12: great big old black ones.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the eleventh in a series of excerpts and adaptations of interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adopted daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

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It’s muscadine season. In my grandmother’s day, and even well into mine, bronze muscadines — scuppernongs — were called scuffalongs, and, as I gorge like a squirrel approaching winter, I am always reminded of one of my grandmother’s favorite stories. Her great-uncle, James Lucian Henderson, who lived near Dudley in southern Wayne County, grew grapes for his church’s Communion wine — and they were off-limits:

“Great big old black ones. Lord, he might as well have told me to go out there and eat all I wanted. I eat all the way down the corn row down to that lady’s house, Mary Budd, and come up through the corn field and come back to the road and went over there stood up there and eat all I want and throwed the hulls over in the pasture. The hog pasture, or whatever that thing was out there where pigs was. They thought I was gon give ‘em something to eat, I reckon. And I throwed the things over there, and I reckon that’s where Uncle Lucian discovered that we was eating ‘em. And he said, “Y’all stay away from out there! Somebody’s been out there —!”  “Wont me!” [She laughs.]  Them things seem like was the best things I ever had. And the arbor there on the yard where was all up in the trees, it’d be grapes. And I’d go there and eat them, but they was little. It was what they call scuffalongs. White grapes. And I’d eat them, too, but I wanted some of them old big ones. Them old big black ones.”

Georgia muscadines, which are not quite as delectable as North Carolina’s, but will absolutely make do.

Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson; all rights reserved. Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, August 2024.

Family ties, no. 11: going down to Dudley.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the eleventh in a series of excerpts and adaptations of interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adopted daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

Minnie Lee Simmons Budd was Sarah Henderson Jacobs’ niece, the daughter of her sister Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons. Minnie, a dressmaker, and her husband Jesse M. Budd married in 1904 and migrated to Philadelphia around 1905. They returned to Wayne County for several years, then settled permanently in Philadelphia in the 1920s. Both their sons died young, and Minnie asked to adopt my grandmother, but Mama Sarah would not split her and sister Mamie Henderson Holt. (Minnie later reared several of her brother Daniel Simmons’ children after their mother died.) In the late 1950s, my grandmother migrated to Philadelphia, and she and Cousin Minnie were regular visitors until Minnie’s death in 1960.

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“Cousin Minnie she had a piano – that’s a piano there, and when you come in her front door on the right hand side, that room where it set, that was her living room. This was their house in Mount Olive. And when I went down there to stay with her two weeks, and she was practicing and playing the piano, she wanted to learn how to play the piano. Well, I guess she had already learnt. But the house was nice, nobody but her and Uncle Jesse.  She wanted to adopt me. I used to go down there and stay with her and Cousin Jesse. And Cousin Cousin Annie Cox and Uncle Hardy Cox was living at that time, and I used to go down there. I stayed with her when Cousin Jesse, her husband, come up to bring tobacco to sell. They used to bring it to Wilson, and I went with them back on the car. They had a truck one time, and then they had the car. And they’d just come up and visit. Mama was living then.”

Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

BLACK WIDE-AWAKE POST #6000! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Henderson Family Reunion 2024.

I’m just back in Atlanta from the Henderson Family Reunion. We are from southern Wayne County, just below Wilson County, but my line arrived in Wilson about 1905 — a story I told here.

Our reunion brings together descendants of the children of James Henderson, a free man of color born about 1815. My line is that of his first son, my great-great-great-grandfather Lewis Henderson, who was alive when my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks was born. Lewis’ daughter Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver was the first in the family to settle in Wilson. She reared her sister Loudie Henderson’s children Bessie Henderson and Jack Henderson and Bessie’s children (my grandmother and great-aunt Mamie Henderson Holt), and nearly 40 of their descendants were among the almost 150 Hendersons in Goldsboro this weekend.

I gave a family history presentation Saturday morning at First Congregational United Church of Christ, the church in Dudley that Lewis Henderson helped found in 1870. My cousins still attend the church; one was guest pastor yesterday. The church cemetery — where my great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-grandmother and her siblings, great-grandmother, and innumerable cousins are buried — is right down the road.

The headstone of Cora Q. Henderson, daughter of Lucian and Susan Henderson — my great-grandmother’s 23 year-old first cousin.

Lewis Henderson died in 1912, and his wife Margaret Balkcum Henderson in 1915. By then, only James Lucian Henderson, their elder son, remained in Dudley. Twice a week, Sarah walked from Elba Street down to Wilson’s A.C.L. depot and handed up to a porter a shoebox packed with cornbread and ham and sweet potatoes. At Dudley, he threw the box off the train to a cousin waiting on the ditch bank. And thus Uncle Lucian and Aunt Susie were fed.

The Dudley depot is gone, but these tracks still run to Wilson.

Nearly 120 years after my Hendersons left Wayne County, the links remain.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2024.

Finding light on this bitter anniversary.

Rederick C. Henderson, about 1951.

I was talking to a friend a few days ago, and she said, laughing, “I never once spoke with your dad, but I swear I can hear him.” I don’t recall exactly what I said, but it was some pithy aphorism or another, and Rederick C. Henderson was the king of same, so she paid me the ultimate compliment.

I miss this man mightily and can hardly believe today marks two years since he left. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel him with me, and I am grateful for all he was in life and beyond.