A Trip back in Time with my Sisters 2021

 by Glenn N. Holliman

In November 2021, my two sisters, Rebecca Holliman Payne and Alice Holliman Murphy and I ventured back to western North Carolina and upper East Tennessee to visit our mother (1923-2015) Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick's ancestral homeland.  We also planned to see our second cousin, once removed, Mary Proffitt Wilson, who as a child remembered our great grandmother, Francis Wilson Osborne (1851-1940).  

Another reason for the trip was for Alice to check on the home that she and her husband recently purchased in Avery County, which is in the North Carolina mountains.  After decades of living in Texas, Alice and Bill look forward to the Appalachian Mountains, where the climate is cooler, and the summers are less humid.  It was in nearby Johnson City, Tennessee where Alice was born.

It has been a number of years since I have visited and written about my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents who occupied and live in some of the most beautiful land in these United States.

Our most pleasant stop was in Vilas, North Carolina with Mary Wilson (b 1927), a delightful lady full of wit, humor and charm.  Below is yours truly (b. 1946), Patricia ('Tricia', one of Mary's daughters) and Mary herself. 

As a child Mary met our great grandmother and even remembered 'Frankie' Osborne talking about our mother, 'Gerry'.  

Mary's late husband was Carl Clyde Wilson, (1923-2012), her distant cousin whose life was devoted to the Baptist ministry.   Carl served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II.  Mary and Tricia shared his medals of his time overseas in 1944/45.  Mary and Carl were married in Henson Chapel Methodist Church, June 1, 1946.

Mary's lineage, as does ours, descends from Isaac Wilson (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911) and then hers follows through grandparents, Mary Jane Polly Wilson (1852-1937) and James Harvey 'Harve' Proffitt (1844-1917) and parents James B. (1896-1994) and Wilma Lawrence Proffitt (1899-1996).

We posed for a photograph with Mary and after a slice of her delicious butterscotch pie, we bid Trica and her goodbye, taking with us a remembrance of a wonderful lady, a dear cousin and visit to cherish.

Below Glenn N. Holliman, Rebecca Holliman Payne, Mary Proffitt Wilson and Alice Holliman Murphy.

Our thanks to cousin Clinton Getzinger and Mary's other daughter, Sandra, for arranging this wonderful visit. - GNH