My Adema Cousins - Part 2

by Glenn N. Holliman

Recently while sojourning in the warmth of a February Florida, my wife, Barb, and I stopped and visited my cousins, the Bob Ademas.  You may recall I wrote of the Ademas, my 2nd cousin, through the George W. (1844-1928) and Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940) line; these two persons are great grandparents of both Bob Adema and myself.

Below, Bob and Gayle Adema in Brandenton.  The photographer in the mirror is yours truly.

This time in what is becoming a twice annual meeting, we met Bob and Gayle's daughter and son-in-law, Vicki Adema McIntyre and her husband, Todd McIntyre.  Below, Vicki, Todd and Barbara Holliman.

Vicki for many years was with the Ringing Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, in charge of ordering feed for the many animals, and especially the elephants.  With the closing of the circus, she is now taking some time off before her next adventure.  Todd is writing a book on chemicals we may not know we are ingesting or inhaling in our 21st Century lives.

Below, Bob holds a picture of his mother, Vicki's grandmother, Gladys Osborne Adema (1913-2003) who lived in Damascus, Virginia.  Gladys met and married Bob's father, Howard Adema (1909-1984), who was working in the 1930s for the Civilian Conservation Corp in Virginia, but whose hometown was Buffalo, New York.

During our meeting this year, I remembered discovering a photograph of Gladys when she visited my Aunt Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006), a grand daughter of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne.  Louise and Gladys were first cousins.  Below, Louise, right and Gladys at Louise's home at Scenic Point, Louisville, Tennessee, April 2, 1978.  Ft. Loudon Lake (the Tennessee River) is in the background.

So, I close this remembrance with a picture taken in Damascus, Virginia in 1938, almost 40 years earlier, in which both Gladys and Louise were present.  Left to right are Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (the writer's mother, 1923-2015), Louise, Gladys and Doris Osborne Akers (1912-1986). Two sets of sisters, both first cousins visiting the home of Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright.

The Wilson-Greer 2012 Family Tour, Part XVIII

by Glenn N. Holliman

Annie Greer Heaton shares Family Materials....

Below Annie Greer Heaton describes family papers.  She is flanked on the left by Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick and on the right by her husband, Jim Heaton.  Lunch on this June day in 2012 was held in Heaton, North Carolina, so named by Jim's founding ancestors.

 

Below Jackie Burleson,  Jason Clodfelter, Gay and Bob Adema and Shirley Sorrell examine some of the fascinating resources Annie has inherited and saved.  One item is the 1860s notebook of Isaac Wilson, the ancestor who was bushwhacked in 1863.

 

 Below are several pages from the notebook August 19, 1863 with details about payment for thrashing.  Notice the names of Farthing, Eggers, Wilson, Reece, Miller and others in the neighborhood of Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina.

 A family historian and distant cousin, Mary Floy Katzman, now deceased, examined the notebook in the early 1990s and wrote this revealing review of the historical document of my generation's great, great grandfather, killed 16 June 1864 while plowing his corn field. Click on the review and it should enlarge.  If you wish an email copy, write glennhistory@gmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 More information on the relationships of Greers and Wilsons can be found at this writer's Ancestry.com site. Please write glennhistory@gmail.com for access or to add information.

 

 

The Wilson-Greer 2012 Family Tour, Part XVII

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Family of Annie Greer Heaton continued....

Below, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick ( b 1923), great, great grand daughter of Jesse Greer, Jr. (1806 - 1892) greats Annie Greer Heaton (b 1924), great grand daughter of the same Jesse.  This picture was taken on the Wilson-Greer family tour June 2012 at the Jesse and Frankie Brown Greer Jr. home in Banner Elk, North Carolina. 'Gerry' grew up in Bristol, Tennessee and Annie in Banner Elk but these cousins did not meet until 2012!
 

 

Annie D. Greer Heaton is the daughter of William Isaac Greer (1874-1938), who is the son of  Wilburn Hardin 'Wib' Greer (1833-1925), who is the son of Jesse Greer Jr. (1806-1892). Caroline Nancy Greer (1828-1911) is the daughter of Jesse Greer, Jr. and the great grandmother of Geraldine Feick.

Geraldine is the grand daughter of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne, and the daughter of Charles S. and Mayme Osborne Stansbery.  Glenn N. Holliman (this writer), Rebecca Holliman Payne and Alice Holliman Murphy are children of Geraldine.

Below, Connie Burns, Alice Holliman Murphy, Becky Holliman Payne and Bryan Payne study materials from the family collection of Annie Greer Heaton.

 

On the tour observing the Jesse Greer, Jr.  Home  are left to right, Jennifer Bond, Connie Burns, Chase Bond, Betty Ankers, Charles Bond, Gayle and Bob Adema and Annie Greer Heaton.

Wilson-Greer 2012 Family Tour, Part XV

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Wilson-Greer Tour goes to Banner Elk....

The last day of our Wilson-Greer tour in June 2012 took us to Banner Elk, North Carolina.  There cousin Annie Heaton and her husband, Jim, joined us.  Jim is descended from a pioneer family that gave it's name to Heaton, North Carolina, a near-by town.  Banner Elk now is in ski country with numerous gated second-home communities located in the western highlands.

On the grounds of Lees-McRae College is a Presbyterian church and grave yard.  In the cemetery are the graves of Jesse (1806-1892) and Frances Brown Greer, Jr. (1810-1905).  When Isaac Wilson (1822-1864) was bushwhacked in June 1864 during the Civil War, Jesse and Frankie raced to Caroline Greer Wilson's side and stayed with her during the trauma of the event and through succeeding months. 

Below, left to right, Gay and Bob Adema, Connie Burns, Betty Ankers,  Charles, Chase and Jennifer Bundy, Bryan Payne, Jackie Burleson, Alice Holliman Murphy, Annie Heaton and Jim Gray at the monuments to Jesse and Frances Brown Greer, Jr.


Caroline's son, The Rev. William A. Wilson, wrote that his grandfather, Jesse, was at the farm when the murder occurred and rushed to his son-in-law's side.  He carried his mortally wounded son to Caroline's home and after Isaac died within the hour, took over arrangements for the funeral.  The father of Isaac, Hiram Wilson, constructed the coffin at Jesse's behest.   Frankie Greer helped protect Caroline and her small children during the deprecations of Union sympathizers home invasions as law and order broke down in the mountain communities near the end of the War.

Above descendant Connie Burns, far right,  remarked over the courage of Frances Brown Greer.   W. A. Wilson described, in the book Neighbor to Neighbor, how his grandmother  confronted Union soldiers who stole food from her daughter's home in the Wilson Cove in Sutherland, North Carolina.  When one young soldier seized the butter pot, the brave Frankie chased him and while scuffling, suffered a deforming permanent injury to a finger from a bayonet thrust!  Left to right: Jackie  Burleson, Jim and Annie Heaton, and Connie Burns.

Above, the monument in Banner Elk to Frances Brown Greer who stood solidly with her family during the darkest days of the American Civil War.  Below the Greer monuments in the foreground, and the Presbyterian Church in the backgound.

Wilson-Greer 2012 Family Tour, Part XI

by Glenn N. Holliman

Please visit Ancestry.com for other blogs of names listed below.  Check the Gallery section.

In the northwest corner of Ashe County, North Carolina, not far from the Tennessee line, 4 or 5 miles east of Trade, Tennessee is the former Isaac Wilson farm.  Today the land has been subdivided and other families reside in a picturesque cove snugly tucked in some of the highest mountains in the Eastern United States.

Descendants Bryan Payne (D.C.), Shirley Sorrell (North Carolina) and Bob Adema (Canada) stand on the cemetery grounds and gaze further into the Wilson Cove in the direction of the 19th Century Wilson home, now long gone and replaced by more recent structures.

Here on June 17, 1864, my great great grandfather Isaac Wilson was cruelly shot and killed in ambush while tilling his corn field.  Home of leave from service in the local Confederate Home Guard, local neighbors, Union sympathizers, fired from a tree line, striking him several times in the back.

With him pulling weeds and helping in the cultivation were several of his daughters,  Emaline, Jane, and a 13 year old, Frances Wilson Osborne, my great grandmother (1851-1940). 

In June 2012, numerous descendants of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson visited the cemetery in Oscar Wilson Cove where both lie buried along now with several dozen other of our ancestors.  Among the families now resting in the Wilson Cemetery are, among others, the Donnellys and the Osbornes.

 Jim Gray, Galye Adema, Betty Ankers, Becky Payne, Bob Adema and Shirley Sorrell at Wilson Cemetery gather around the Isaac Wilson marker.  Isaac is believed to have died on the hillside in the background of the above photograph.

 

One of the most avid Wilson and Forrester family historians is Clinton Getzinger (Virginia) who for years has visited relatives and recorded their stories of his ancestors.  Recently Clinton has published his first novel, Forbidden Romance, based in  part on the lives of Greer, Wilson and Forrester families of the 19th Century.  The book is available at Amazon.com.   Clinton is photographed here  during the family tour which he helped design and organize.



Wilson-Greer 2012 Family Tour, Part X

by Glenn N. Holliman

Please visit Ancestry.com to find information on names mentioned below.

We continue our June 2012 tour of Wilson and Greer family sites in western North Carolina.  Below is the Donnelly Store at the corner of Highway 88 and Oscar Wilson Road in Sutherland, North Carolina.  The general store and auto garage has been operated by the Donnelly families for several generations.  Bruce Donnelly married Torrance Wilson in 1906, who was a grand daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.

 
Below Joanne Donnelly, widow of Joe Donnelly, a son of Bruce and Torrence Wilson Donnelly, waits on Bob and Gayle Adema.  Bob is a great, great grandson of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  Bob and Gayle came from Canada for this return to his family roots.  Visiting a genuine country store was a treat for all of us, where we stocked up on cold soft drinks. Larry Donnelly, son of Joanne and Joe, now runs the tire and general store, keeping Donnellys in Wilson Cove for yet another generation.


 

 Below, two sisters and a brother pose at the Donnelly Store.  Left to right from Texas is Alice Holliman Murphy, Rebecca Holliman Payne of Tennessee and the author, Glenn Holliman of Pennsylvania.  All three siblings are great, great grandchildren of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson.  Their great grand parents were G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne, also of Sutherland and Cove Creek, North Carolina in the 19th Century.

Next up the Cove to the Wilson Family Cemetery....

Greer-Wilson Family Tour, 2012 Part IV

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our first full day of our Greer-Wilson ancestral tour began in Todd, Ashe County, North Carolina, now a ghost town as the Virginia Creeper railroad has long ceased to carry forest products from the mountains.  Todd is located on Highway 194, north of Boone and south of West Jefferson.

Left to right are Gayle Adema, wife of Bob Adema, a descendant of Frances Wilson Osborne. On the far right is Gerry Stansbery Holliman Feick, likewise descended from Frances Osborne.  In the middle is Shirley Sorrell who records her descent from John and Rebecca Wilson.  John was a brother of Frances Wilson Osborne.

Below, notice the Baptist Church sign and the name South Fork. Todd is on the South Fork of the New River, one of the oldest rivers in the world.  There are dozens of small Baptist Churches in the mountains of western North Carolina.  The Second Great Awakening swept through the Appalachians in the early 1800s.

Conservative and emotional Protestantism remains a major cultural force in the mountains as it appears to have been in the lives of our highland ancestors.  These churches helped tame the rough and ready energies of the frontier settlers and the generation that followed.  Schools and benevolent institutions followed in the backwash of the Great Awakening, and the moral tone of society considerably improved.

Bryan Payne, descendant of Frances Wilson Osborne, reads the Todd historical marker, a community where his Greer ancestors once lived. 

Next article we go to the Todd cemetery which contains the mortal remains of Jesse and Mary 'Polly' Greer III.

Adema and Osborne Photos Rediscovered and Shared

by Glenn N. Holliman

Photos from Adema and Stansbery Albums

August 21, 2010 I visited at Port Colborne, Ontario my second cousins, Bob and Gayle Adema and their son, Rob. Rob, who lives in Buffalo, NY had visited my Newport, PA last month. Bob and Gayle, my daughter Grace and I had visited last March in Florida along with Bob's sister, Peggy Noeltner.

We discovered new and old photos, some they had, some I had from my mother, Geraldine Stansbery and her sister, the late Louise Stansbery Sherwood.

Bob and I are of the same generation, and G.W. and Frankie Osborne are our great grandparents. Bob's grandfather is Bascomb Osborne and my grandmother is his sister, Mayme Obsorne. 

Here are some new and shared photos, and I will stay with them for several weeks. For those of you just dying to know more about the Wilcoxson family, you must be patient!

Below are identical photos of Doris and Gladys Osborne, 1921. The one on the left was in the Adema album and is labeled. The one on the right was in the Stansbery album. After 90 years these pictures are joined again. Doris and Gladys were the daughters of Bascomb and Dora Kruger Osborne. Tragically Dora died of a weakened heart at age 32 in 1922, and because Bascomb was unable to care for them property, the two girls and their brother, Bascomb K., went to live with Pearl Osborne Wright and her husband Dave in Damascus, Virginia, outside of Bristol.

Gladys is the mother of Bob, Alan and Peg Adema Noeltner. Doris is the mother of Phyllis and Dave Akers.

Both these girls are first cousins of my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick.

My thanks to Bob and Gayle for their kind lunch and hospitality and to their son, Rob, who scanned all these photos. Since 1940, the Adema family has enjoyed a cottage on the north shore of Lake Erie, experiencing soft, cool summer breezes and gazing at water and passing lake freighters.