From the Scrapbook of Bruce and Torrence Donnelly, Part 3....

 by Glenn N. Holliman

A Look at the Lives of the Children of Bob and Sara Ellen Wilson....

 

In recent articles, we have been posting photographs from the scrapbook of Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly courtesy of their great grand daughter, Jennifer Bundy.  Jennifer's mother, Jackie Ruth Lewis Farrington, has provided us short biographies of her great aunts and uncles.

 

Sara Ellen Wilson (3/6/1866 – 3/1/1952) left and her sister, Rebecca Wilson, married brothers - Bob and John Wilson, sons of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson. This photo was taken in the early 1950s. From the Shirley Sorrell collection.

 

 

 

 

 

Above the Bob and Sara Ellen Wilson Wilson house in Creston, North Carolina where they raised their children. The comments are composed by Jennifer Bundy from information provided by her mother. Jennifer's great grandparents, Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly, eloped from this house in 1916 and lived to celebrate over 50 years of marriage!  Interestingly, three of their sons left North Carolina and moved to the West Coast.

 

Above "Ed Wilson went west and first worked for a large sheep and/or cattle ranch. Later he bought his own ranch there and ran it successfully. He married twice, but had no children. Mom stayed with Ed and his second wife Hattie a lot as a child in Oregon, and remembers them as wonderful loving people who were very good to her. She learned about Ed’s first marriage many years later. She thinks he met Hattie when he worked on the first ranch, and said Hattie was a cook on that ranch.  The first marriage ended when Ed's wife began running, well, a very risque road house!" 

 

Above "Witt also went west and worked for a while, but he came back to NC and farmed on Bob’s farm.  He and Neva lived at home with Bob and Ellen and farmed and took care of their parents."

Above "Neva lived at home until her parents and Witt had died. She was about 50 when she married a Hash and moved to Tennessee with her husband. After his death, she came back to NC and lived in Jefferson for many years."

 

Above "Edna married Charles Osborne and they lived on the Peak Rd. at Creston and farmed."

 

Above "Oscar farmed in the hollow at Sutherland, North Carolina where Isaac and Caroline had lived."
 



Below "Torrence and Bruce Donnelly farmed at Creston. Bruce also ran a small country store, but Mom thinks he quit the store after his children were all grown. She doesn’t remember the store when it was operating. The one there now was built where the old store was, by their son Joe. I can remember the old store building there when I was growing up, but we weren’t supposed to go inside as it was an old run down building."

 

 

Below "Lee went west and worked for one of the sheep ranches, near an Indian reservation but Mom doesn’t know which one. His wife and children lived in Creston and he came back periodically to see them but did not work in NC."

 

 

Below, the Bruce and Torrence Donnelly house in Creston in the 1970s.

 

 

Next Post, more Wilson photographs....

 

More information on the relationships of Greers, Wilsons, Osbornes, Stansberys and others can be found at this writer's Ancestry.com site. Please write glennhistory@gmail.com for access or to add information. For information on the Forrester Family Reunion in White Stone, Virginia, Sunday, October 6, 2013, email Diane Goss at dangel54@yahoo.com for details.

 

From the Scrapbook of Bruce and Torrence Donnelly...Part 2

We continue with photographs from the scrapbook of Bruce and Torrence Donnelly.  Torrence was a grand daughter of Isaac and Carolina Greer Wilson and daughter of Bob and Ellen Wilson of Ashe County, North Carolina.  A great grand daughter of Torrence, Jennifer Bundy, made these pictures available. - Glenn N. Holliman

Below, Jennifer Bundy, a librarian, shares lunch with her distant cousin, Bryan Payne during the June 2012 Wilson-Greer Family Tour in Ashe County, North Carolina.  Both are great, great, great grandchildren of Isaac and Caroline Wilson Greer of Sutherland, NC.

Below, Bruce and Torrence Wilson, Jeffiner's great grandparents, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1966.


 

 Above, Bruce and Torrence with their children on their 50th anniversary.  Left to right: Joseph Bruce Donnelly, Grace Elizabeth Donnelly Wilson, Raymond Charles Donnelly, Virginia Dare Donnelly (Jennifer Bundy's grandmother), Torrence Lillian Wilson Donnelly, Anna Belle Donnelly Ragan, Bruce Donnelly, Margaret Donnelly Wallace and Ruth Frances Donnelly Duncan.

 

Jennifer provided the following data on Bruce and Torrence Donnelly and their children.

 

Bruce Charles Donnelly (11/26/1893 - 11/1/1989) married Torrence Lillian Wilson(12/18/1899 - 8/10/1986).

 

Their children are:

 

Grace Elizabeth Donnelly (11/26/1916 - 1/14/1998) married Conley Argus Wilson (10/3/1909 -1/3/1994).  There was a second late marriage to Ed Wallace.
 

Raymond Charles Donnelly (9/25/1919 - 4/3/2002) married Edith Irene Younce (4/15/1923- 5/27/1989).
 

Virginia Dare Donnelly (7/2/1921 - 2/26/2008) married (1) Morris Franklin Lewis (7/13/1917 -10/20/2003), Jennifer Bundy's grandfather, (2) Burl Ray Winebarger (7/3/1915 - 7/5/1969, (3) James Louis Johnson (1/1/1929 - 1/26/1975), (4) and (5) twice married Willard Glenn Lewis (10/2/1916 -10/10/2004).

 

Anna Belle Donnelly (3/22/1923) married Tip Ragan (5/10/1918 – 11/21/1990).

Ruth Frances Donnelly (5/2/1925) married Meredith Brooks Duncan (1/20/1924 – 8/17/1969).

Margaret Donnelly (6/18/1930) - married James Kermit Wallace (12/14/1926 – 10/25/2007).

Joseph Bruce Donnelly (10/28/1932 – 1/4/2012) married Joann Wallace who survives.

 Below, Joann Wallace in red with Shirley Sorrell at the Donnelly Store in Sutherland at the end of Oscar Wilson Road, the historic farm land of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson. Joe Donnelly had passed away a few months before this photo was made in June 2012.  Son Larry Donnelly of the next generation now manages the store with his mother.

More on the Bob Wilson family in the next post....

 

More information on the relationships of Greers, Wilsons, Osbornes, Stansberys and others can be found at this writer's Ancestry.com site. Please write glennhistory@gmail.com for access or to add information. For information on the Forrester Family Reunion in White Stone, Virginia, Sunday, October 6, 2013, email Diane Goss at dangel54@yahoo.com for details.

 



by Glenn N. Holliman

From the Scrapbook of Bruce and Torrence Donnelly....

Cousin Jennifer Leigh Knight Bundy, left, recently has made available some mid-20th Century photographs of the Wilson and Donnelly families of Sutherland, North Carolina.  What follows is her family lineage and snapshots from the Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly scrapbook held by Jennifer's family. 

Jennifer's lineage is as follows. She is the daughter of Meredith Lewis Knight and Jackie Ruth Lewis Farrington. Jackie Ruth Lewis Farrington is the daughter of Master Sgt. Morris Franklin  (a Bataan Death March Survivor) and Virginia Dare Donnelly Lewis. Virginia Dare Donnelly Lewis is the daughter of Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly. Torrence Wilson Donnelly is the daughter of Bob and Ellen Wilson. Bob Wilson is the son of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.

Jennifer, her husband and son, and twenty other cousins toured Sutherland, the Wilson Cemetery and the Donnelly Store in June 2012.  These Wilson photographs augment the numerous family pictures printed in Neighbor to Neighbor (2007) available at the Appalachian State University book store.

Today the original mid-19th Century farm of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson is subdivided into several homes and farm steads.  The topographical maps name the road into the cove as the Oscar Wilson Road, leading off State Highway 88 in Ashe County, North Carolina. - GNH

Isaac (12/16/1822-6/17/1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (12/16/1828-9/8/1911) had seven children, one being Robert 'Bob' Wilson.  Caroline had an 8th child, Sarah Marilla Wilson Osborne, several years after her husband's murder by 'bushwhackers' in June 1864.  In this article, we trace one branch of the family. 

Bob Wilson (1/4/1860-2/7/1949) married a cousin, Sara Ellen Wilson (1866-1952).  One of their children was Torrence Wilson who married a neighbor, Bruce Donnelly.  Bruce's parents were Gustavous and Flora Latham Donnelly who lived in Sutherland. 
Bob and Ellen Wilson lived at Green Valley.  Their house and the one Torrence was raised in is still there.

Above taken prior to Bob Wilson's death in 1949, left to right are Flora Latham Donnelly, Gustavus Donnelly, Robert Wilson, the son of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, and Robert's wife, Ellen Wilson, mother of Torrence Wilson who married Bruce Donnelly.

Above the children of Robert and Ellen Wilson in 1956.  Left to right are Lee Wilson, Grover DeWitt Wilson (2/4/1885-3/24/1957), Edna Wilson Osborn, Edgar Wilson, Neva  Wilson Hashe (7/7/1905-11/23/2003), Oscar T. Wilson (2/24/1989- 8/28/1985) and Torrence Wilson Donnelly.  Torrence is the great grandmother of Jennifer Bundy.  

Another photograph of same children left to right back row - Witt, Oscar, Edgar, Lee and front row - Torrence, Edna and Neva.  These photographs are believed taken at the Wilson-Donnelly farm in Sutherland.  Below a chimney and barn still stand at the site of the old homeplace. The photo was taken by Jennifer Bundy in 2010.

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Next post, more photographs from the Bruce and Torrence Donnelly Scrapbook....

More information on the relationships of Greers, Wilsons, Osbornes, Stansberys and others can be found at this writer's Ancestry.com site. Please write glennhistory@gmail.com for access or to add information. For information on the Forrester Family Reunion in White Stone, Virginia, Sunday, October 6, 2013, email Diane Goss at dangel54@yahoo.com for details.