Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 27 May 1933.

Anna Fisher Snipes‘ hotel, which operated only briefly, was eventually named the Wilson Biltmore. Snipes occasionally contributed society pieces to the Norfolk Journal and Guide and on 15 July 1933, wrote a column that largely chronicled doings at her hotel. (What kind of business were all these Black Durham lawyers conducting in Wilson?)

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 15 July 1933.

Similarly, in the 11 August 1934 Journal and Guide, Snipes opened her column with:
“The Biltmore Hotel is a grade A hotel and anyone wishing to stop in our city at any time of the day or night will find a hearty welcome waiting at this hotel and just such accommodations as one wants when traveling. And the proprietors Mr. and Mrs. E.T. Fisher will on every occasion prove to be hospitable and obliging in every way.”

“Mr. and Mrs. E.T. Fisher”? Presumably this was Snipes’ parents, Edwin W. and Daisy Fisher. (Her brother Edwin D. Fisher was a widower who did not remarry until 1941.) Either way, it reveals the Snipeses had transferred ownership of the hotel barely a year after it opened.

The Biltmore was the only Wilson hotel to make The Green Book. Its building replaced an earlier hotel, known as the Union and then the Whitley, that burned down in the early 1930s.

——

In the 1910 census of New Haven, Connecticut: at 30 Hazel Street, hardware merchant Edwin W. Fisher, 37; wife Daisy, 32; and children Edwin D., 16, Eugene L., 13, Clarence R., 10, Anna V., 6, Milton W., 3, and Susie A., 1.

In the 1932 Orange, New Jersey, city directory: Snipes John A (Anna F) r 18 Clifford EO

Anna F. Snipes’ bylines indicate that she was living at 624 East Green Street (the former Hargrave house) circa 1933.

In 1936, Anne Snipes appears in the voter register for Manhattan, New York, New York. She lived on Saint Nicholas Place; was 31 years old; was a housewife; and asserted she had lived in New York state for 9 years.

Snipes also appears in the 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1946 voter registers for Manhattan, New York, New York. She is described as a housewife in all but the last, when she was a bar owner.

In the 1940 census of Manhattan, New York, New York: on Saint Nicholas Avenue, Anne Snipes, 35; daughter Robnette, 18; brother Floyd Fisher, 27, hotel bellhop; and lodger Louise Evans, 28, maid in artist’s studio. [Fisher reported that he had lived in Wilson 5 years earlier. Evans had lived in Wilberforce, Ohio.]

In 1940, John Allen Snipes registered for the World War II draft in New York, New York. Per his registration card, he was born 29 December 1905 in Clarksburg, West Virginia; lived as 590 Saint Nicholas Avenue, #105 [later, 79 Saint Nicholas Place, Apartment C], New York, New York; his contact was wife Anna Virginia Snipes; and he worked for H.C. Andrews.

In the 1945, 1946, and 1948 New York, New York, city directory: Snipes Anne F Mrs 75 St Nich Pl WAdswth 6-7944.