The 2013 Wilson-Greer Reunion, Part 4A

by Glenn N. Holliman

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

We continue our stories and photographs of cousins and ancestors, inspired by the July 2013 Wilson reunion at Shirley Sorrell's home in Sutherland, North Carolina. Our Forrester-Wilson-Greer-Osborne-Donnelly-Adams and other associated families lived (and many still do) in the lush valleys and highlands of beautiful Western North Carolina.

Right are two cousins who knew each other as children, over 50 years ago - Dale Wilson, whom we read about in the last post, and Jackie Ruth Lewis Farrington, at Shirley's family home in North Carolina, July 2013. 

Jackie, who lives in southwest Virginia, is the daughter of Virginia Donnelly, who was the daughter of Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly, a daughter of Bob and Ellen Wilson Wilson.  Bob was a son of Isaac and Caroline Wilson.  Jackie's daughter is Jennifer Bundy, a serious Wilson/Greer/Donnelly family historian, who attended with her husband and son the 2012 Wilson-Greer site and seminar celebration.

Torrence  (12/18/1899 - 8/10/1986)  and Bruce Charles Donnelly (11/26/1893 - 11/1/1989) farmed at Creston, a few miles from Sutherland.  Bruce also ran a small country store. Later one of their son's, Joe Donnelly, ran the store until his death a few years ago.  Joe's son, Larry Donnelly with his mother, runs the store and garage, which is located at the entrance to Oscar Wilson Road, the site of the original Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson farm.
 

 Photograph and above comments courtesy of Dale Wilson.

 Below in the spring of 1948, Jackie Lewis Farmington with her parents  Morris Franklin Lewis (7/13/1917 -10/20/2003) and  Virginia Dare Donnelly (7/2/1921 - 2/26/2008). 

 

The marriage was ill-fated due to Morris's horrendous World War II service.  He fought in the Battle of Bataan and survived the infamous Death March and years of Japanese captivity.  For the rest of his life, he suffered from what today would be called post traumatic stress syndrome, and now lies in Arlington Cemetery, a hero who suffered mightily for his country.

 

Virginia married again.  First to Burl Ray Winebarger (7/3/1915 - 7/5/1969, then James Louis Johnson (1/1/1929 - 1/26/1975) and twice married Willard Glenn Lewis (10/2/1916 -10/10/2004).

In May 1928, Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940), the great grandmother of this writer, wrote in her diary of an extended trip from her home in Bristol, Tennessee to visit her siblings and in-laws in Ashe County, North Carolina, ancestors of Jackie Farrington and other cousins who attended the 2013 reunion.

A reading of this diary reveals a rich kinship and friendship among the children and grandchildren of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  The spelling and grammar is that of Frankie's, reflecting the modest education she received prior to and during the Civil War.  Comments are by Clinton Getzinger (CWG), whose knowledge of the Wilson-Forrester families is encyclopedic! 

May 19 – “may the 19 saturday…Went to Bob Wilsons at sutherland.”  These are Jackie Farrington's great grandparents.

May 25 – “Friday 25…Went to Walter Osborne, spent 2 night…Sunday 27, came  back to Bobs Wednsday 30…come to Earl Donnelly Sunday 3…left Earl Donnely ...come to church the…went up to Becky Wilson.” Walter Raleigh Osborne 1867-1933 was Frankie's nephew. His father was Clemons Osborne 1835-1902, a brother of George Washington Osborne.   Earl Donnelly is a son-in-law of Uncle John and Aunt Rebecca Wilson. He married their daughter Mamie Edna Wilson. CWG

June 10 – “went to Preaching and Sunday school.   Come back to Bruce Donnelly for diner.” Bruce Donnelly married Bob Wilson's daughter Lillian Torrence Wilson.  These are Jackie Farrington's grandparents.  CWG

June 15 – “Friday 15…Went to Conly, spent the night.  Bought 1 galon of strawberry, paid 50cts.  Got half dosen pint cans, paid 45 cts…got 4 lbs sugar, paid 36 cts…cost of all $1.31.”  Frankie was making strawberry jam.

June 16 – “Saturday…Went to Bobs, spent the night, came Back to Beckys Sunday.  Spent the night Sunday 17.”

Frankie Wilson Osborne, who was present at her father's Isaac's Civil War murder, died in 1940 in Bristol, Tennessee from complications of a broken hip.  Her mother, Caroline Greer Wilson, died in 1911, from the same condition - complications from a broken hip. 

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact  glennhistory@gmail.com.  These articles may be found at Ancestry.com in the Holliman-Long site and/or at the virtual archive at www.bholliman.com.

  
 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2013 Wilson-Greer Reunion, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

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

We continue our stories and photographs of cousins and ancestors, inspired by the July 2013 Wilson reunion at Shirley Sorrell's home in Sutherland, North Carolina along the North Fork of the New River. Our Wilson-Greer-Osborne-Donnelly-Forrester and other associated families lived (and many still do) in some of the most beautiful, tallest and isolated mountains in the eastern United States.  Our thanks to Dale Wilson for sharing his story.

Left is Dale Wilson and right, Shirley Sorrell at Shirley's family home in North Carolina, July 2013.  Dale is a great, great, great grandson of Isaac (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911).  His great, great grandparents are John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson.

Thomas Conly Wilson (1882-1957) and Verda Barlow (1880-1969) are his great, grandparents.  Dale, now a resident of Kansas, is a grandson of Conley Argus Wilson (10/3/1909 -1/3/1994) and Grace Elizabeth Donnelly Wilson (11/26/1916 - 1/14/1998).  One of their daughters, Betty Jo Wilson Hodges, is Dale's mother.

 

 

 

Below is a group photograph with identifications of Dale's Donnelly side of the family. Dale took the name Wilson after his Mother's separation from her first husband. Typed comments on this and other photographs by Dale Wilson.

  Below, Argus Wilson, one of Dale's grandfathers.

Dale lived the first twelve years of his life in Sutherland, Ashe County, later attending Appalachian State College.  Recently, he reflected on that time and his North Fork upbringing with the following short fascinating memoir which captures the culture of that time. 

For those familiar with the story of the 1864 bushwhacking of Isaac Wilson (this writer's great, great grandfather), Dale's memories suggest animosities and feuds continued for generations.

"Life in rural Sutherland, North Carolina in the early 50’s was the essence of bucolic America.  We were mostly ignored by county, state and federal government, thank God!  So long as taxes were paid we were free to subsist as best we could, hunt for small game, plant tobacco and continue to marry our cousins when it seemed a good fit. After all, being landlocked both culturally and geographically had its advantages, but I digress.

At the age of  7 I began my formal education at Mabel Elementary School in Zionville, NC.  What is striking to me is that I traveled by bus thru three counties and two states to arrive at Mrs. Mast’s first grade class.  There we learned organization, respect for our teachers and how to read the King’s English thru snippets of the daily lives of Dick and Jane with a healthy dose of Spot. 

Each day commenced with a school bus ride under the tutelage of one Willy Laing, who was charged with bringing us safely from our homes to school and back again.   Willy began the pick-ups in the heart of Potter Town (Meat Camp) where decent men did not tread nor tarry due to the general lawlessness of the area.  Here people simply settled their grievances with a gun, with no remorse for the outcome and little sympathy for the loser. 

 So well I remember sitting on the bus between two children, one whose father had slain the other child’s father in a contest over some squabble probably to do with a rhetorical insult or less.   Mountain men did not insult each other...did not wrong each other in a cavalier way without suffering certain consequences. 

The Potters, the Ellison’s, the Snyder’s, the Shelton’s...names of children I remember well and especially the eyes they cast when their kin were killed by the relatives of the student they shared a bus seat with.  Today we would find this “insensitive” at best.. in those days it was simply reality." - Dale Wilson

Below, Thomas Conley Wilson, one of Dale's great grandfathers.

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Holliman at glennhistory@gmail.com.  Stories on the Wilson, Osborne and Greer families can be found at Ancestry.com under the Holliman-Long family tree and at www.bholliman.com.

 

 

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.