Reflections of The Rev. William A. Wilson

by Glenn N. Holliman

Additional Memoirs by an Amazing Ancestor....

The Rev. William Albert Wilson, 1861-1951, a minister of the Gospel, a scholar, a writer, a man of integrity. Family tradition is that this photograph was taken in the field where his father was shot in 1864 in Sutherland, North Carolina.  A Southern Methodist Church minister, he served forty years as a missionary to Japan from 1890-1930.

Years ago, I wrote in this space of the book Neighbor to Neighbor published in 2007 by the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. This work largely concerns William A. Wilson (1861-1951) telling of the bushwhacking of my great, great grandfather Isaac Wilson (1822-1864) of Sutherland, Ashe County, NC in June 1864. The Civil War borderland unrest and violence between pro-union residents of East Tennessee and pro-Confederate residents of Western North Carolina was vividly played out by the ambush slaying of Isaac by his neighbors.  Isaac was a lieutenant home on leave from the Confederate Army.

This horrible event was witnessed by my great grandmother, Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940), who was with him in that cornfield.  She orally passed this traumatic memory along to her grandchild, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015), my mother. As a child living in Johnson City, Tennessee in the 1950s, I vividly remember my mother telling me this awful story. 

Her interpretation, which varies from Will's, had her great grandfather, Isaac, observing a band of 'guerrillas', irregular Union men, approaching his fields.  He sent Frankie, my 13 year old great grandmother, back to the farm house while he confronted the armed men on horseback. While she ran to the house, her father was shot and killed.

With the advent of the internet and in my retirement years, I discovered William A. Wilson's version of the bushwhacking on the Johnson County, Tennessee history web site.  To my amazement additional research found the story in the Appalachian Journal, Fall 2006, a publication of the Center for Appalachian Studies.  Later I  discovered and purchased a copy of Neighbor to Neighbor, an even fuller description of the horrid event by William A. Wilson, who was only three years old at the time of the tragedy.

The 2006, Fall Applachian Journal with considerable material on the Isaac and William A. Wilson families.

Upon his retirement as a Southern Methodist Church missionary in Japan in 1930, my great great Uncle Will, collected numerous memories of the 1864 tragedy, typed it up by 1940 and put it away, only to have descendants make it available to scholars two generations later.  This was the nucleus of Neighbor to Neighbor.

There must have been a bit of the writing bug in the family.  Will was very well educated for the time and place in which he found himself.  Whereas Will matriculated at Trinity College (now Duke University), Frankie, one of his older sisters, had her limited schooling interrupted by the War. She married at age 15 to George Washington Osborne, and together they had numerous children, the last one being my grandmother, Mayme Osborne Stansbery (1896-1943).  


Frankie left a diary begun in 1914 which continued until a month before her death in Bristol, Tennessee in 1940.  Her spelling was 'the way she talked', irregular and in the vernacular of the mountains.  When I found the diary in 2009, I was entranced and taken into a world of relatives and events previously unknown to me.  Frankie in the 1930s, right.

For several years, I transcribed it, trying to understand who the persons were, relatives I had never known.  I discovered my Ashe County ancestors, and came to appreciate the part played by the Greers, Wilsons, Boones, Wilcoxsons and others in the construction of not just my DNA but also values that helped form my life.  

This journal can be found at www.bholliman.com/ in the Record's section.  Place in the Search bar the title - Diary of Frances Wilson Osborne, 1914-1940 and click.  It took time to upload so it will take time to download - over 100 pages.

In 2011 with the diary 'translated', I felt it should be preserved and not tossed out by some descendant of mine in some future generation, so I donated it the Center for Appalachian Studies at ASU.  While there I met historians who passed along to me a copy of additional memoirs by The Rev. William A. Wilson, material too expansive for the 2006 Journal and 2007 Neighbor to Neighbor.  I quickly reviewed the 110 pages or so, and filed it in my genealogical papers.  These memoirs are entitled Reflections of The Rev. William Albert Wilson.

There has been more than enough material to keep me busy writing in this blog space, trying to capture stories of my maternal ancestors. Recently, worrying about the mass of family manuscripts entrusted to me, I created a virtual archive at www.bholliman.com, a place for the storage, hopefully for generations, of family materials that in previous decades would have remained hidden in attic or even worse tossed to a garbage pail.  I remembered Will's additional memoirs, which covered in detail his work in Japan and his voyages to and from this Asian nation, and wanted to make them available to all.

I emailed Michael Ignelzi, a great grandson of Will, and with his encouragement scanned the manuscript and uploaded it to the aforementioned web site.  I broke it into 19 sections for ease of both up and downloading.  This manuscript which covers years and family from 1890 to 1930 is now available at no cost.  

Just go to the Records page, find the 'search' bar, key in Reflections of  The Rev. William A. Wilson or even just the name "Wilson", and the work will be available for downloading to one's computer.  This is a 1980 typed and privately printed manuscript saved by his grandchildren to whom I am very grateful.

In future posts, I plan to analyze this marvelous gift from the past and share some insights. William Albert Wilson was a man of God, dedicated to sharing the Gospel in Asia.  He was steadfast in his difficult work and a man of integrity and high intelligence.  I encourage my relatives and historians to visit this document and discover the good work to which Will gave his life.

The Wilson Cemetery in Sutherland, North Carolina where William A. Wilson and his parents are buried.


A Special Note from Michael Ignelzi, great grandson of William A. Wilson -  Michael reports that cousin Ruth Duncan of Sutherland has been insuring that the Wilson Cemetery is mowed numerous times each summer.  The cost of this is approximately $350.00 a year.  The Ignelzi family contributed to this effort this summer, and invite all of us cousins to assist in maintaining this important part of our past.  Checks can be sent to Mrs. Ruth Duncan, 21861 NC Highway 88 West, Zionville NC 28968-9561. Thank you. - GNH

The virtual archive can be found at www.bholliman.com/ .

From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell, Part 10

by Glenn N. Holliman

As observed in early posts, the majority of the 20th Century  descendants of Isaac (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911), left family farms and pursued occupations in the communities and cities usually far from ancestral roots in Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina. 

In the United States, the number of persons employed in agriculture fell constantly from the Civil War to 1950 as agricultural mechanization and specialization increased, and as jobs in the growing industrial and manufacturing sectors proved more lucrative and attractive than subsistence farming.  Such was the case with the ancestors of Shirley Sorrell who kindly shares these photographs.

Above at the Wilson-Greer and Families Seminar in 2014 in Boone, North Carolina, left Shirley Sorrell and right, distant cousin Jeanette Suggs.

The lineage of Shirley Sorrell

Her parents:   Deronda (1918-1966) and Barbara McCall Donnelly (1922-1965)

Her parental grandparents:   Thomas Earl (1892-1964)  and Mayme Wilson Donnelly (1892-1975)

Her great grandparents:  John (1855-1928) and  Rebecca Wilson Wilson (1862-1954)

Her great great grandparents:  Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson (the same as this writer)

Below, Shirley's father, Ronda Donnelly who served in India and Panama during World War II.  Ronda and wife, Barbara McCall, lived in Boone, North Carolina (where Shirley was born) and later moved to Richmond, Virginia.    Shirley's mother also served in World War II.  She joined the WACs as a secretary during the war and lived in Washington, DC when in Army.  Sadly, both Shirley's parents died young.

Below, left to right in the 1940s, Roger Donnelly, his mother, Mayme Donnelly, John Sutherland and his wife, Mayme's daughter, Becky Donnelly Sutherland. 

Roger (1928-2011) moved to West Virginia, married Pauline Wilson Roark, who had one son from a previous marriage.  Later, Roger worked in coal mines and road construction in Tennessee and owned a place in Shady Valley, Tennessee. He served in the Korean War.

John Thomas Sutherland of Sutherland was a descendant of the family that founded the community along the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County.  Neighbors married neighbors.   John (1918-1991) moved to Raleigh when he and Becky Donnelly wed, and drove a Greyhound bus until his retirement.  Becky graduated from Appalachian College in Boone and taught school a few years before marriage.

                                         The Grandchilden and Great Grandchildren 
                                             of Rebecca Wilson Wilson, 1940 ca

Extreme back: Verd Wilson

Back row: Marie Wilson Marsh, Boyd Wilson, Don Wilson in hat, Roger Donnelly, Argus Wilson

2nd row: ?, Shirley Marsh, Virginia Hurt, Becky Donnelly, Ernest Wilson, Meredith Duncan, Shirley Hurt, Joe Donnelly

Front row: Bill Wilson, Marie Wilson, Rebecca Wilson, Robert Wilson, (in chair) Anna Bell Wilson, Becky Wilson, Becky Hurt, Betty Wilson

Readers are invited to help with identification of persons in this picture, and please send along any memories or information on any relatives.


All are invited to join in building the family tree at Wilson-Greer-Osborne-Forrester-Donnelly and Associated Families of Western NC at Ancestry.com.  Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation or to provide information on the reunion photograph.  Thanks!

Who is this G. W. Osborne?

by Glenn N. Holliman

Recently I received an email and pictures from a former antique dealer who found this blog on the Internet.  She has in her possession an object that has the name G.W. Osborne embedded.  I thank her for her email.  Here are her words.

"Do not know if this has anything to do with your family. I am redoing a room and when I was cleaning my old vintage register (see pictures) I took notice in the label on the side of it.

It reads:     Re-Order From

                    G. W. Osborne

                   Box 358

                   Crystal River, Fla.

I thought I still had the little work orders in the file, but when I was cleaning they are not there any longer. It seems to me if my memory is right that the work orders were small yellow paper and might of been a machine shop or repair business of some sort. The pictures are not great as I can not get a clear shot on my staircase. The thing weighs a ton, or I would take it outside and take better pictures.

Thought I would google it, and came up with your address.

I have had it for years. I am actually from Cape Cod Mass. When I was there I sold antiques. I used to go on antiques buying trips into Penn. all around  Lancaster, Allentown, and York. I picked it up on one of my trips, back in the mid 80's. Have carried it around with me ever since. Love it. I would love to know the history of it."

Left, a photograph believed to be my great grandfather, G.W. Osborne, not a merchant in Florida but a farmer in North Carolina and Tennessee

Hmmm...yes, my great and great, great grandfathers are named George Washington Osborne, but to my knowledge neither every visited Florida, much less lived there.  G. W. Osborne, 1803-1882, was born in Grayson County, Virginia, the son of Jonathan Osborne, 1753-1831, who was born in Yadkin Valley in Rowan County, North Carolina, and died on a farm in Grayson near his more famous pioneer brother, Enoch. 

Local Ashe County, North Carolina historian, Rufus Myers, has written about numerous of my Mother's ancestors (Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, 1923).  Her grandfather, George Washington Osborne, 1846-1927, the son of the above G. W. Osborne, was born along the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County. 

This G.W. farmed in Sutherland, Ashe County after marrying Frances Caroline Wilson (1851-1940), daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  Later he moved his family to Cove Creek, Watagua County, North Carolina, and during the Depression of 1896 tried farming and the mercantile business in Blountville, Tennessee, Damascus, Virginia, Afton, Tennessee and finally retired to Bristol, Tennessee where he died and is buried.

According to Myers and my research the Osbornes originally came from New Jersey.  I have yet to prepare a comprehensive history of this branch of my family, but many Americans were named after the first President George Washington.  Perhaps one branch of the prolific Osborne family did settle along the Gulf Coast of Florida. 

Crystal River, Florida is about two hours north of Tampa, and is only a century old.  Originally the community developed from the local cedar that was cut and made into pencils.  Perhaps this Mr. Osborne migrated  south from the mountains and made furniture from the native Florida wood at the turn of the last century?

My thanks to the inquisitive lady who wrote me. Can any one help us with this family mystery?

The 2014 Wilson, Greer and Associated Families Forum 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

More Photographs and History....

One of our cousins who attended the Wilson-Greer-Osborne-Forrester Family Forum in Boone, North Carolina this past July was Kathryn Wilson, daughter of Clyde (1912-2006) and Maude (Tincy) Williams Wilson (1917 - 2010).  In the 2005 photograph below, Kathryn sits between her father and aunt, Jean Wilson, wife of Ernest Wilson, Clyde's brother.  On the far left is Tincy, her mother.  (Tincy picked up her life long nickname because of her size as a toddler.)

 

The story of Clyde and Tincy is one that was repeated millions of times in their generation.  They grew up in a rural part of America, Watauga and Ashe Counties, North Carolina.  In the 1930s occurred the Great Depression and in the 40s, World War II.  After the war, they married, eventually left the mountains and moved to a larger city, working in education and industry.  They helped create and enjoy the affluence most Americans enjoy in this generation.

Born in Watauga County, Maude took advantage of what is now Appalachian State University to become a first grade teacher, first in Kingsport, Tennessee and later in Mabel, near Zionville, and High Point, North Carolina.  

Clyde grew up Ashe County in the mountains and went to Asia during World War II.  

On the Fourth of July 2005, The Mountain Times of Boone, North Carolina ran the following front page article on Clyde's service during that World War. 

   

"On a warm, July 4^th day in the Silverstone community of western Watauga County, Clyde Wilson almost wasn’t born.  Today, the Boone resident plans to celebrate his 93^rd birthday on Monday.

“It was a special day, the day I was born because I just weighed a pound and a half,” he said, recalling that he almost didn’t make it. Nevertheless, his family celebrated his birth in 1912 along with the birth of a nation.

Upon meeting Clyde, it’s obvious he’s built to last and he still commands a razor-sharp memory. His hearing’s not so good and he has trouble with his eyesight. But, ask Clyde about his past and he can recall just about any event with details that would prove astonishing for someone half his age.  He moves about slowly, using an intricately inlaid cane, but his eyes brighten when he talks about his past.

The middle child of Arlie and Bessie Wilson, Clyde and his brothers, Boyd and Ernest, grew up in a county rife with economic downturns even before the Great Depression.  'I’ve worked for fifty cents a day,' he said. 'Lots of times, after you worked a week, they couldn’t pay you.'

While making money for his family as a gardener and doing other odd jobs, Clyde found time to attend Cove Creek School where he would later meet the girl he was to marry, Maude Williams.

“We worked young----we had to work,” he said.

Helping his father, who served as Watauga County’s treasurer, make a weekly commute ranked as one of his top household chores.  'I’d ride a horse (and bring another horse) from Silverstone to Boone to pick my Daddy up.'  Arlie would stay in town during the week and make the 15-mile journey with his son on Fridays back home.

Although Clyde had at least ten years on most World War II soldiers, he still answered the call to duty at the age of 30 while working at a naval facility in Norfolk, Va. 'I felt like I ought to go so I let the draft catch me.' he said.

As a member of the Army’s 429^th Engineers unit, he landed in North Africa in 1942.  The U.S. commissioned the unit for a few specialized tasks—most notably the construction of a road from Iran to an uneasy wartime ally, Russia.  As a motor sergeant, Clyde ensured every vehicle stayed in top shape and remained within the convoy.  That job became a life-threatening hardship when the unit crossed the Himalayan Mountains on its eastern trip.

'We had airplane wreckers (flatbed trucks with large boom-cranes for hauling aircraft) that were 60-feet long' he said. 'We took 50,000 five-gallon cans of gas.'  The trucks couldn’t navigate some of the hairpin mountain passes so Clyde and his comrades had to maneuver a bulldozer under the trucks’ rear axles to move them around.  In the Himalayas, the unit took some heavy but faraway fire from entrenched Japanese units – mostly snipers and artillery troops hidden in caves.

But the unit’s biggest threat came not from Asian gun barrels but from the mountain climate. Growing up in the High Country may have prepared Clyde for cold winters – but not the 40-below zero temperatures his outfit faced. 'The weather got bad for three days and three nights in the Himalayans. We had to wait for a thaw.'

But rather than surrender to the elements, Clyde devised a plan to survive.  'What I did – I shoveled snow up around a truck, sealed it off and left a little place to get under it.'

After weathering the frigid attacks and finishing the road to Russia, the engineering unit unloaded those 50,000 cans of gasoline and built an airport in China. By 1945, the war wound down and Clyde could almost taste his homecoming.

The Army offered soldiers a chance to go stateside if they agreed to sign on as a second lieutenant for two more years. Clyde remembers telling one of his friends, 'I don’t want to be a lieutenant. They get all the slack from the top up and the bottom down'”

Finally, he agreed to a 45-day leave, with the understanding that he would reenlist for another year. 

'But I remember saying, If I ever get out of here, I’m not coming back,’ he said.

And he never did.

On his return trip home, his transport plane caught fire in India. Clyde’s previous orders to return for 45 days and return for one year were on the plane with him. 'Those papers were on me when the fire started. That’s a good time to lose them', he said with an enigmatic grin.

Arriving stateside at Fort McPherson, Clyde 'told my captain what I’d done and he said, ‘Don’t you worry – you won’t have to go back.'

Clyde surprised his parents, who by then had moved to Ashe County, with an abrupt homecoming in October of 1945. 'I was at home before they knew I was around. I just walked in the door,”'he said.

Clyde married Maude and they began what will be a 60-year marriage this month. While Maude worked as a teacher in several places, including Mabel School, Clyde worked as a service technician and salesman for Ivy Wilson’s Boone dairy equipment business.

'I covered 21 counties, seven in North Carolina, several in Tennessee and seven in Virginia.' Later, he would work as a mechanic in High Point and a shop foreman in Greensboro before retiring to Boone in 1991.

He looks forward to celebrating his 93^rd birthday and has long enjoyed sharing it with Independence Day. For his 90^th birthday, more than 70 visited his Forest Hills home including well-known community leader, the late Alfred Adams.  And it’s pretty obvious he’s looking forward to his 60^th wedding anniversary.

'Those wives – they really keep you going, don’t they?' "  

Kathryn writes: "During my lifetime, my father worked in High Point, North Carolina for Olympic Chemical Company - a Division of Cone Mills. It is now called Olympic Products, and is owned privately. Daddy managed the industrial maintenance department. OCC manufactured polyurethane foam for mattresses, pillows, cushions etc. Prior to the move to High Point in 1956, he worked for Ivy Wilson's Boone dairy equipment business as a salesman and technician.

I don't know the details well enough to describe them but there was a lot of politics involved back in the day (in the mountains) in terms of who got jobs and who didn't. Just for the record and it made for interesting family dynamics - Daddy was a conservative Republican and my mother was just about as far to the left as one could get.

 My mother's father Edd S. Williams was very involved in local/state politics but never ran for public office.  I have heard plenty of "talk" about stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes - suppose that stuff happened back in the day!

Three of his 5 daughters (including my mother) married Republicans. The family joke was that someone asked him how many sons-in-law he had and he responded with: "I have 2 - the other 3 are Republicans."

 

1945 ca Clyde and Tincy (on the right) and Becky Wilson Ignelz, daughter of William and Cal Wilson, a grand daughter of Wilson family historian, The Rev. William A. Wilson (1861-1950), the Methodist missionary to Japan.  Clyde would marry Maude in 1945, and they enjoyed a 61 year union.

"And I have heard my father say many times, there were just not many ways to get ahead or make a good living in Watauga/Ashe. He always laughed about the concept of the good old days as they were not nearly as good in terms of making a living and having money to buy things with as they were once he left the area. 

With that said, he thought the mountains of North Carolina were heaven on earth. He and my mother were able to return to Boone when he was approaching 80 years of age and still in great health and live out his remaining years in the place he loved most." - Kathryn Wilson

Next posting, more lineages of cousins who attended the July 2014 Family Forum in North Carolina....

From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell 4

by Glenn N. Holliman


Continuing our tour of Shirley Sorrell's Family Album....

Our continued thanks to cousin Shirley Sorrell for sharing this magnificent collection of Wilson family photographs of the descendants of Isaac (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911).  These families lived along the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County, North Carolina surrounded by mountains and lush forests.


"The earliest settlers to Ashe County cleared small patches of upland soil and cultivated it by scratching the surface with crude home-made implements.  When the cleared patches decreased in productiveness they were said to be 'worn out' and then new land was cleared and brought under cultivation.  Within one or two seasons the abandoned land became covered with grass, mainly clover and blue grass.  

This development tended to increase stock raising but, as a matter of fact, there was not great demand for livestock for many years.  Apparently each settler was interested in just enough work stock for his individual use, and cattle, sheep, and hogs were raised to supply the home demand for beef, milk, butter, mutton, and bacon." - p. 208, Ashe County, a History by Arthur Lloyd Fletcher, McFarland Publishers, Jefferson County, North Carolina, 1963 (reprinted 2006).


While limited agricultural land meant that some children of prolific parents such as Wilson descendants had to move west, others remained to engage in age-old subsistence farming.  These turn of the 20th Century photographs capture the last generation of an agricultural era now gone. By World War II, most of these farms were uneconomical.  Seasonal homes, gated communities, Christmas Tree farms, tourism and work in service industries have replaced the family farm.

Edgar Osborne and Conley Wilson, ca 1910. Edgar, born 1893, the son of Walter Raleigh and Effie Lewis Osborne, was one of the many who migrated to Oregon. Conley, a son of John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson, elected to stay in North Carolina and farmed until his death in 1957.

"Prior to 1872, all plows hoes, shovels and other implements used in Ashe County were homemade from iron ore taken from the mines of Ashe and forged in Ashe County forges." - p. 208, Fletcher.

 

Above, 1907 ca Sutherland, North Carolina Callie, Minnie, John, Don, Preston and Ruth Wilson.  John Wilson (1855-1928) and his wife, Rebecca Wilson Wilson (1862-1954), were the parents of ten children who grew to maturity.
 

"The cutting and shocking of corn was first practiced in 1882...Commercial fertilizer was not used prior to 1891.  There were no facilities for soil testing in those days, and Ashe county farmers saw no need for it." -  Fletcher, p. 208

Above and below, herding sheep, Bob (1860-1949) and Ellen Wilson's (1866-1952) farm in Sutherland, North Carolina. Help in identifying these persons most welcome.

"In 1925, it took 10 to 15 acres of corn to feed a team of horse.  By 1963 in Ashe County, less than one acre of corn will feed a team of horse for a year." - Fletcher, p. 213

As the 20th Century moved on and mechanism increased "One man, plus the proper machines, could do the work formerly done by ten men or more.  There was no farm work waiting for the boys finishing high school...." - Fletcher, p. 216

"The exodus from American farms marked the end of self-sufficiency and an uprooting of families from their heritage. In 1900 40% of  the U.S. work force was in agriculture. Today the number is about 2%" - Atlantic Monthly, June 2013

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