A Book About Our Family

by Glenn N. Holliman

In 2007, The Center for Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University in Boonesboro, North Carolina (a town named after one of our ancestors) published an 180 page book entitled Neighbor to Neighbor. The volume is about the family of Frances Wilson Osborne, my generation's great grandmother. Edited by Sandra L. Ballard and Leila E. Weinstein, most of the paper back is a memoir by my generation's great, great uncle The Rev. William A. Wilson (1861 - 1951). His photo (right) and family are on the cover.

Born in Wilson Cove, near Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina, William was the last of eight children born to Isaac Wilson and Caroline Greer Wilson. He was the best educated of the children, having graduated from Trinity College (now known as Duke). Raised a Southern Methodist, he was ordained a pastor in that denomination.

In 1890, he accepted a call as a missionary to Japan, and spent the next forty one years mainly in the Hiroshima district. Every ten years he was granted a paid furlough. In his first decade in Japan, he met and married Mary Amelia McClellan, another Southern Methodist missionary. They were to have four children.

In the work Neighbor to Neighbor, Will shares his memories of growing up in the Western North Carolina mountains near Boone, NC to the south east, and Mountain City, Tennessee to the west. He collected stories and tales from his mother and siblings, and in his old age gathered them up in a memoir that remained unpublished in book format until recently.

Of particular interest is the story of the 'bush whacking' and murder of my generation's great, great grand father, Confederate Lt. Isaac Wilson in June 1864 while he was plowing his corn. My generation's great grandmother, Frankie Wilson Osborne, was with him when bullets fired from ambush took his life. Great great grandfather Isaac is buried in the Wilson Cemetery in Oscar Wilson Cove. His son, the Rev. William A. Wilson, the author of the poignant memoir, lies near him.

Neighbor to Neighbor can be ordered from the Appalachian State University bookshop. If they are out of the work, please contact Sandra Ballard, editor of the Appalachian Journal. The volume contains several photographs of Frankie Wilson Osborne and information on both her and G.W. Osborne, Jr., her husband and my great grandfather.

Will tells a story of an America that my grandchildren would not recognize. If you want your children to understand the violence and tragedy of the Civil War, have them read this book. Our immediate ancestors lived and suffered in a manner we can scarce imagine in the 21st century.

Next post, more on our Appalachian Mountain roots....