A fuller story of Alma Farmer‘s attempted suicide:
Wilson Daily Times, 16 November 1921.
I have not found a death certificate (or indeed anything at all) for Alma Farmer; she may have survived her terrible injuries.
A fuller story of Alma Farmer‘s attempted suicide:
Wilson Daily Times, 16 November 1921.
I have not found a death certificate (or indeed anything at all) for Alma Farmer; she may have survived her terrible injuries.
Jesse and Mary Sherrod Ward‘s entire family was stricken with accidental arsenic poisoning in June 1923, perhaps from eating cabbage from their own garden. Jesse Ward died immediately and his four year-old daughter Virginia Dare Ward two days later.
Wilson Daily Times, 15 June 1923.
News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 16 June 1923.
The end of Prohibition in December 1933 did nothing to stem the flow of bootleg liquor in Wilson (or anywhere else). Home brew could be dangerous though, and, in the new year, Charley Singletary and John Hagans died in back-to-back months from poisoned alcohol.
“Found dead in Bed supposed to have drank poison liquor No Sign foul play.”
“Supposed from drinking poison whiskey”
——
Charlie Singletary registered for the World War I draft in Florence County, South Carolina, in 1917. Per his registration card, he was born in 1896 in Olanta, South Carolina; lived in Lake City, South Carolina; was a farm laborer; and was married with a child.
In the 1920 census of Lake township, Florence County, South Carolina: Charlie Singletary, 22; wife Josephine, 20; and son Wallace, 3.
Charlie Singletary, 23, son of Simp and Mollie Singletary, married Elizabeth Singletary, 19, daughter of Sam and Mary Singletary, on 17 March 1925 in Wilson.
In the 1930 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: Charley Singletary, 33; wife Lizabeth, 23; and children Fred, 4, J.B., 2, Gilbert, 1, and Evon, 2 months. Charley and Lizabeth were born in South Carolina.
John Hagans registered for the World War I draft in Oldfields township, Wilson County in 1917. Per his registration card, he was born 25 December 1889 in Rock Hill, South Carolina; lived in Rock Hill; worked as a stone quarry laborer for Harris G[ranite]. Co., Neverson, Wilson County; and was married.
In the 1920 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: on Neverson Stone Quarry Road, stone quarry laborer John Hogan, 31, and wife Mattie, 23.
In the 1930 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: on Highway 91, widow Mittie Lucas, 40, laundress; her sons Otis, 19, and Maryland, 14; and roomers John Hagan, 38; Carder, 19, and Mandy Walker, 17, all of South Carolina.
Wilson Advance, 16 November 1899.
Wilson Advance, 6 April 1883.
Neither man is listed in the 1880 census of Wilson County. Dr. Calvin C. Peacock practiced medicine in the town of Wilson in 1880, and Dr. William S. Anderson is listed in Black Creek township.
Well into the twentieth century, children faced harrowing odds against reaching adulthood. Disease, accidents, and violence bore them away in sorrowful numbers. In the 1910s, 17% of American children died before age 5, a figure that was higher for Southern and African-American children. Few children who died in Wilson County were buried in marked graves. In town, most early burials were in Oaklawn, Rountree, or the Masonic cemetery. The Oaklawn graves were exhumed and moved to Rest Haven in the 1940s, Rountree was engulfed by pine forest, and their headstones, if they ever existed, have been lost over time.
By allowing us to call their names again, this series of posts memorializes the lives of children who died in the first twenty years in which Wilson County maintained death records. May they rest in peace.
Diarrhea and dysentery
Stomach disorders and conditions
Indigestion
Pellagra
Intestinal disorders and conditions
Poisoning and esophageal burns
Nutritional disorders, marasmus and inanition