From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell 8

by Glenn N. Holliman


Shirley Sorrell, great great grand daughter of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, continues to share photographs she has collected of her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.


Below, a picture in the 1940s of Roger Donnelly, left, followed to the right by Mayme Donnelly.  Next moving right is John T. Sutherland and his wife, Mayme's daughter, Rebekah Donnelly Sutherland.  The picture was taken at the Mayme Donnelly home in Sutherland, North Carolina.

Below, in 1937, in Sutherland, a picture was taken of the oldest children of Bessie and Conley Wilson, who are also the grandchildren of John (1855-1928) and Rebecca Wilson (1862-1952) who is sitting center on the front row. 


Back row, left to right are:  Bessie's oldest son, Boyd Wilson and his wife, Lexie holding the baby named Gloria.  Then Coney's oldest son, Argus and his wife, Grace Wilson holding baby Betty.  Finally on the back row is Conley's daughter Marie and husband Don Marsh with baby Shirley Marsh. 


In the front, left is Bessie Wilson Wilson holding Boyd's son, Robert.  Then Rebecca Wilson Wilson and finally Conley Wilson. 

Robert James Wilson was born August 25, 1932 and died of leukemia on August 16, 1950.  Gloria Jeanette Wilson entered life on October 5, 1934, William Boyd Wilson March 9, 1936 and Annabel Wilson, July 31, 1938.

Corrections, additions and your own photos, most welcome.  GNH

We invite you to rediscover your heritage at a Wilson, Greer, Wilcoxson, Osborne, Forrester, Adams and other families Forum, Saturday, 9 :30 am, July 19, 2014 in the community room of the Boone, North Carolina public library.  Sunday, July 20th is also the annual Wilson Homecoming at Sutherland United Methodist Church in Ashe County.  Join us for dinner, 6 pm at the Rustica restaurant in Boone, NC on Friday, July 18th.

For details and schedule on the above event and web site, watch this space and/or contact glennhistory@gmail.com.  Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson are great, great grandparents of this writer.

From the Scrapbook of Shirley Sorrell 5

by Glenn N. Holliman

Continuing our Series of Wilson Photographs....

 Several cousins, Shirley Sorrell, Dale Wilson and Kathryn Wilson have made this article possible with their photographs and knowledge of ancestors who were born and for many, lived their lives in the North Fork of the New River in Ashe County, North Carolina.    We continue the series with more on John Wilburn Wilson (1855-1928), a son of Isaac (1822-1864) and Caroline Greer Wilson's (1828-1911).

John and Rebecca Wilson Wilson (1862 - 1954) had ten children who lived to maturity,  and while some descendants still reside in the Western North Carolina mountains, many have dispersed across the United States. 

One son of John and Rebecca's was Thomas Conley Wilson, born Feb 18, 1882 and died Dec 9, 1957. He married Verde M. Barlow, (1880 - 1969). Their children are Marie Wilson (1908-2001), Conley Argus Wilson (October 3, 1909 - January 3, 1994) and Thomas Earl Wilson (October 22, 1913 - July 23, 1977).  Earl married Neva Howard ( b. Aug 12, 1912).


Conley lived all his life on a farm that was part of the Issac Wilson home place. The house still stands on the right just before Wilson cemetery on Oscar Wilson Road, Sutherland, North Carolina.  John and Rebecca, his parents, lived a little further up the road from him. He died of what appeared to be a heart failure in his barn, where his son Argus found him.

 
Robert Wilson was the last child of John and Rebecca, born June 4, 1906 and died May 18, 1987 and is buried in Guildford Memorial Park in Greensboro, NC. As a young man, he went out west with his nephew, Earl Wilson (son of his brother Conley). Robert was a bachelor for a long time, but later married Imogene (last name unknown) from Galax, Virginia.  There were no children from the marriage. The coupled lived in High Point, North Carolina where Robert worked at Sears in Greensboro for years. Imogene worked at Pilot Life Insurance.

He loved horses but Imogene did not want him spending money on them. So he would buy one, and say it was his nephew's, Clyde Wilson. Clyde was the oldest son of Robert's sister, Bessie Wilson.  They did have dogs and cats at home.  Clyde Wilson, his wife Tincy and their daughter Kathryn lived in High Point also. Robert ‘s youngest sister, Ruth Wilson Hurt, lived in Greensboro within miles of Robert. Reportedly Imogene and Ruth had their differences and 'fought like cats and dogs'!

 

Above, recently in my sister's attic I found my mother's (Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, b 1923) baby book kept by her mother, Mayme Osborne Stansbery (1896-1943).  They lived in Bristol, Tennessee, and visited John W. Wilson and families in Sutherland in July 1924.  According to the above entry my mother first crawled at her great Uncle John's home.  The photograph to the right, appears to be my great grandmother, Frances Wilson Oborne (1851-1924) holding my mother while her two siblings, Frances Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006) and Charles Stansbery (1981-2006) mount a horse in Wilson Cove. 

Below are the obituaries concerning John Wilburn Wilson and his death in 1928.  This is has become a comprehensive treasure chest of family names and relations. Notice the reference to the bushwhacking in 1864 of Isaac Wilson by Leonard Columbus Wilson, a cousin by marriage. Click on the pages twice and they should enlarge.

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.