From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell 7

by Glenn N. Holliman


The sun was shining brightly on a September's day in Wilson Cove in Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina in 1935 when this picture of John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson's descendants was taken.  Shirley Sorrell has saved this and other photographs and has identified these family members. 

Below, the grandchildren of John and Rebecca.

Below are the son-in-laws of John and Rebecca Wilson. Front row, left to right are Earl Donnelly married to Mayme and Shirley Hurt, wed to Ruth.  Back row, left to right are Chall Osborne married to Minnie, William Wilson married to Cal,  Bower Duncan wed to Margaret (Maggie) and Arlie Wilson whose wife was Bessie.

When one analyzes the occupations of the son-in-laws, we begin to see the increasing economic diversity of the North Carolina highlands.  Several had moved to medium size cities for employment.  Two had become educators.  Only one remained a farmer in this generation.

Earl Donnelly was a hardware store salesman.  Shirley Hurt was a paint company salesman in Greensboro, NC and did landscaping. Chall Osborne was a farmer in Ashe County although he and Minnie had gone out west to tend sheep. William Wilson married his first cousin Cal.  He graduated from Trinity College (now Duke), class of 1914.  He served in the U.S. Army and worked for Liggett and Myers Tobacco in Durham from 1920 to 1959.  His father was the Methodist missionary to Japan who wrote the Wilson family memoirs of the violent 1860s. Bower Duncan served as a teacher principal and superintendent in Ashe County schools.  He attended Appalachian and Wake Forest, served in World War I and as a magistrate for many years.  

Arlie Wilson ran a store in Mabel community, and taught in Watauga and Wilkes county schools.  He and Bessie later moved in with Rebecca Wilson Wilson to care for her.

 In 1935, the U.S. Congress passed the Social Security Act ensuring retirement benefits to older Americans.  The descendants of John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson, unlike Rebecca, would be able to live their senior years more independently.

Below, a picnic at the reunion.  Shirley Sorrell has identified several of the persons as Deronda Donnelly, Ernest Wilson,  Don Wilson, Becky Donnelly and Geraldine Wilson in the middle of the photograph.  Additional identifications welcome.

 We invite you to rediscover your heritage at a Wilson, Greer, Wilcoxson, Osborne, Forrester, Adams and other families Forum, Saturday, 9:30 am, July 19, 2014 in the community room of the Boone, North Carolina public library.  Sunday, July 20th is also the annual Wilson Homecoming at Sutherland United Methodist Church in Ashe County.  The Family Forum begins at the Rustica Restaurant, Boone, NC. 6 pm, July 18th.  Email glennhistory@gmail.com for reservations, please.

 For details and schedule on the above event, contact glennhistory@gmail.com.  Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson are great, great grandparents of this writer.

The 2013 Wilson-Greer Reunion

by Glenn N. Holliman

A 2013 Gathering at the Ancestral Home of Earl and Mayme Wilson Donnelly....

Every third Sunday in July the Sutherland, North Carolina United Methodist Church holds a homecoming with preaching and lunch on the grounds.  Generally this draws a number of descendants of the pioneers who settled the picturesque North Fork of the New River Valley in the late 1700s and early 1800s.  Below the church service on 21 July 2013 with guest preacher, Bennie Wilson, left, a third cousin of this writer.

 

The Sutherland United Methodist Church was founded in the middle 1850s as a result of revival camp meetings held along the North Fork.  Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilsons evidently were charter members of this congregation.  One of their sons, William Albert Wilson, became a Methodist minister, once a pastor of the church, before spending 40 years as a Christian missionary to Japan. 

This writer's great grandfather, George Washington Osborne, was ordained a lay minister at the church in the 1870s and preached in the church and to other Methodist congregations in the North Carolina highlands between the 1870s and 1896, before moving to Tennessee. Below the Sutherland United Methodist Church today, the latest physical incarnation, resting on a hill above the North Fork of the New River.

This past July, my son, Christopher S. Holliman and grand daughter, Camille, and I took a few days to drive to Watauga and Ashe Counties from our Virginia and Pennsylvania homes.  For my offspring it was a first time look at the mountain landscapes, cemeteries and traditional cultures of where our ancestors rest.  Below is the magnificent view from the front door of the former home of Earl and Mayme Wilson, grandparents of the current owner, Shirley Sorrell.  The peaks surrounding Sutherland and Creston, NC near Trade, Tennessee soar as high as 5,500 plus feet, some the tallest mountains in the eastern United States!

After dinner on the grounds at the Sutherland Methodist Church, a number of Wilson genealogists gathered at Shirley's home and made plans to form a core group of cousins who will continue to share and save our ancestral highland heritage.

Gathering below on Shirley's front porch are left to right: Glenn N. Holliman of Pennsylvania, Jackie Lewis Farrington of Virginia, Shirley Sorrell of North Carolina, Clinton Getziner of Virginia, Len Wilson of North Carolina, Dale Wilson of Kansas and Peggy Sue Huber of Pennsylvania. Len is holding the Civil War sword of our common great, great or 3 great grandfather Isaac Wilson (1822-1864).

 

This story and others of these families may be found at Ancestry.com or at www.bholliman.com.