vacation

Recommended reading, no. 25: Chowan Beach, Remembering an African American Resort.

Founded in 1926 on the eastern bank of the Chowan River, about 100 miles northeast of Wilson, Chowan Beach was a thriving African-American resort for decades, drawing family vacationers and legendary chitlin circuit musicians for decades. In this slim book packed with photographs, Frank Stephenson brings to life a favored vacation spot for generations of Wilsonians.

Wilson Daily Times, 26 July 1940.

 

Sarah Shade visits her brother in Brooklyn.

Thirteen year-old Sarah L. Shade spent some time with her brother John A. Shade and sister-in-law Ruby Purcell Shade before the school year began in 1924.


New York Age, 18 October 1924.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 535 Nash Street, Turner Stokes, 50, carpenter; wife Morah, 39; mother-in-law Martha Pitt, 83; and boarders Isac Shade, 44, drugstore manager; wife Estella, 38; and children Kenneth, 13, and Sarah, 9. [Estella Lane Shade was Isaac A. Shade‘s second wife.]

On 9 September 1937, Sarah Luvenia Shade, 27, of Wilson, daughter of I.A. Shade and Estella Shade, married Richard Clyde Minor, 27, of Columbus, Ohio, son of Richard C. Minor and Alice G. Minor, in Wilson. A.M.E. Zion minister Richard A.G. Foster performed the ceremony in the presence of Thelma B. Foster, Norma E. Darden, and C.L. Darden.

In the 1940 census of Jefferson City, Cole County, Missouri: at 809 East Dunklin, university professor Richard C. Minor, 40; wife Sara, 28; and boarder Rubye Harris, 20, university music teacher. [Richard Minor and Harris taught at Lincoln University.] Both Minors reported having lived in Salisbury, N.C., five years earlier.

The Lincoln Clarion (Jefferson City, Missouri), 30 October 1942.

Sarah and Richard Minor divorced in Missouri in October 1948, and a year later she filed a notice in Wilson County of her intention to resume use of her maiden name.

Sarah L. Shade died 5 March 1992 in Wilson. [She reverted to her maiden name after divorce.] Per her death certificate, she was born 10 November 1910 in Asheville, N.C., to Isaac Albert Shade and Estelle Lane.

North Carolina, Wilson County Divorce Records, http://www.familysearch.org.