More Photographs from my Sister's Attic, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

Ah, the things one finds when an attic is explored.  Recently, my sister, Becky Holliman Payne of Tennessee, went through her boxes of memorabilia received from her mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick and Louise Stansbery Sherwood.  I long ago thought what could be found, had been found.  As I have shared in the last two postings, I was wrong!

Below is a photograph many of us have seen, and of which several of us distant cousins have copies.  I have believed this shows my great grandparents, George Washington and Frances (Frankie) Wilson Osborne around the time of their wedding in January 1867.  Frankie was a young bride, (1851-1940) a daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson of Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina.  G.W. was older, (1847-1927) born to parents  G.W. (1803-1882) and  Mary Baldwin Osborne (1803-1899), also of Ashe County.  It was around this date that G.W. was ordained a Southern Methodist pastor at Sutherland Methodist Church in Ashe County.  

Below is the original tin type, the first time I have seen it.  It shows G.W. holding what appears to be a Bible.  But the date is not 1867; we now know it was 1874 due to the fact, one of their children, Pearl Osborne Wright (1890-1980) wrote on the back of the framed tin type. 

 

As she dated this frame in 1940 (see picture below), my Great Aunt Pearl probably inherited this when Frankie died in November of that year.  In time the photograph passed to my Aunt Louise Sherwood, then to my Mother, and finally to my sister.

 

  

Note the instructions Pearl (Mrs. Dave Wright), pictured below ca 1940,  at her Damascus, Virginia home, gave the photographer to 'spruce up' the tin type.

 

Also, below found in the attic this picture taken ca 1933 of Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006), who kept the memorabilia in her home in Knoxville, Tennessee until her death.  Her husband was Vance R. Sherwood, Sr. (1910-1990).

 

Two sisters who were quite close all their lives were Louise (left below) and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, right below (b 1923), this writer's mother.  This precious photograph of the two sisters at play, which I had never seen before,  may have been made in 1927.  They lived with their parents, Charles S. and Mayme Osborne Stansbery in Bristol, Tennessee, where their grandparents, G.W. and Frankie Osborne also resided from the late 1910s to their deaths.

So, to paraphrase a popular television credit card commercial, 'What's in your attic?"

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Holliman at glennhistory@gmail.com. Or visit the Holliman-Long Ancestry.com site and www.bholliman.com virtual archive.