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/ .

More Photos from My Sister's Attic Part 4

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our trip through a box in my sister's, Becky Holliman Payne, attic continues.  These are odds and ends.  They are not in any order but each photograph tells a story of a different time and place.

To All:  My articles are scattered on various names of persons mentioned in my blogs below and in other Ancestry.com sites.  An archive of material may be found in the Records page of www.bholliman.com.

I want to begin with the picture below.  Can anyone help identify him?  Several clues here - one Damascus in the background.  From 1908 - 1910, my great grandparents, G.W. Washington and France Wilson Osborne owned a boarding house in that southwest Virginia town, not far Tennessee and North Carolina.

Notice this young, handsome man is sewing.  Is he a tailor?  A clothing store owner?  The fascinating advertisement for Bruner Woolens illustrates a pre-World War airplane.  Can any one help with the clothing styles?  Could this be Ward Wright, the brother of David Wright who married Pearl Osborne in 1912?

This picture was taken indoors when such pictures were usually studio shots.  The lighting is perfect, and we can enjoy the young man's snazzy bow tie and horizontal stripped socks!  He would do well to sweep the floor before the boss comes in.

The girl, second from left, in the white blouse is my great grandmother, Mayme Osborne (Stansbery) probably taken when she was 14 in 1910.  The setting appears to be in Damascus, Virginia, a village whose mountain rivers still overflow on occasion.  The other young ladies are unidentified.  Who does the hair of the girl on the extreme right? 

Mayme would move with her parents to Afton, Tennessee later in 1910 when she would meet and marry Charles S. Stansbery, Sr..  They married in 1914, with her father, G.W. Osborne conducting the ceremony.

Horse and buggy photographs, especially when this clear, can't be passed up.  Who is the chap in the seat?  He appears to be dozing with a bowler hat tilted to protect him from the sun.  In the meantime, the horse obliges with a stately pose.  Any information on person and place, most welcome.

And I will stop with these pictures....first is of my late Uncle Charles Stansbery, Jr. (1918-2006), age 6, in 1924 living in Bristol, Tennessee.  He looks like a living advertisement for Buster Brown shoes.  Charles, or 'Red' as he was know due to his red hair, joined the Army Air Corp in 1938, serving until the early 1960s. 

The second picture was taken 19 years later when Charles was home on leave in 1943.  It was a fortuitous leave.  During the three weeks home he met the love of his life, Anne D. Smith (Stansbery).  Caught up in the rush of war, they married after knowing each other only five weeks.  The marriage only latest until Anne's death in 2002!  A beautiful love story involving a Tennessee boy who was dressed as 'Buster Brown'.

 

Below, Charles and Anne Stansbery in 1975, no longer with a Buster Brown hair-do or an Army uniform.

 

 

 

 

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Holliman at glennhistory@gmail.com.

K

More Photographs from my Sister's Attic

by Glenn N. Holliman

Last post, I placed pictures of The Rev. William A. Wilson, my grandmother's (Mayme Osborne Stansbery) uncle.  These were found in my sister's attic (Becky Holliman Payne) in Tennessee.  Below is one of the pictures posted of Will Wilson evidently outside of his Methodist school in Japan.

Cousin Shirley Sorrell,  descended through John Wilson, a brother of Will Wilson, had in her collection of family photographs a picture (see below) evidently made at the same time and place in Japan as the pictures held by my branch of the family!  Somewhat damaged, the clothing, flowers, building and setting are identical.  This was probably made in the 1920s, the last decade of Uncle Will's forty years of service in the mission field.

 

 

 In the same group of 'attic' pictures saved through the generations by my family branch are pictures of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson, my generation's great great grandparents.  These two copies are 'rough' and seem to have had some hand drawn 'touch up'.  On the back of each, in my grandmother's handwriting is the following identification:

 "Caroline Greer Wilson, born Dec. 10, 1828, died Sept. 8, 1911.  Fell and broke hip June 8, 1907".  Many of my distant cousins have the same pictures, although in better condition.

 

  

 The 'touch up' is much more visible in the picture of Isaac Wilson.  Note his collar and front are basically a drawing. Written on the back of his photograph are the words: "Isaac Wilson, born Dec. 16, 1822.  Died June 17, 1864. Killed in Civil War."

 

 

The attic box revealed two photographs of my grandmother that I had not seen before.  The one below must have been taken ca 1897 when Mayme Osborne was only one year old.  It was about that time that G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne (daughter of the above Isaac and Caroline Wilson) left Cove Creek in Watauga County, North Carolina and moved to Blountville, Tennessee in Sullivan County.  The county was wracked by a Depression during that time, and George Washington Osborne gave up farming and meager farm prices to run a general store.  

 

 Below is Mayme O. Stansbery ca 1940, a formal portrait taken when she was in her mid-40s. She was in ill health much of her adult life, and she passed away at age 47, December 1943.  She and Charles S. Stansbery, Sr. parented three children - Louise Frances Stansbery Sherwood (1914-2006), Charles S. Stansbery, Jr. (1918-2006) and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015), this writer's mother).

 

 

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Hollian at glennhistory@gmail.com. Or vvisit the Holliman-Long family tree in Ancestry.com.  Likewise the virtual archive www,bholliman.com. 



 

 



Discovered - Lost Photographs of The Rev. William A. Wilson



by Glenn N. Holliman

October 29, 2013 I visited my sister, Rebecca Louise Holliman Payne in Tennessee who was in the process of sorting her family pictures.  One box she had stored in her attic years ago was an inheritance of memorabilia from our late Aunt Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006).  Louise was the daughter of Mayme T. Osborne (1896-1953) and Charles S. Stansbery (1893-1957). Below Mayme and Louise in 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where the family had moved during World War II.

Louise's maternal grandparents were G.W. Osborne (1844-1927) and Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940), both originally from Ashe County, North Carolina.  They had met in 1865 when G.W. and a cousin, Richard Franklin Osborne, took refuge in the home of Caroline Greer Wilson (1828-1911), the recent widow of Isaac Wilson (1822-1864) ambushed on his farm during the Civil War.

In the attic box were photos from the Stansberys and three intriguing ones of Louise's great uncle and a brother of Frances Wilson Osborne, The Rev. William A. Wilson (1861-1950).  The pictures are in excellent condition and may have been professionally made.  They were taken in Japan where Will served as a Southern Methodist missionary from 1890 to 1930.

I emailed these photos to Michael Ignelzi, a direct descendant of William Wilson, but he had not seem them in the family.  So I am sharing them now with the larger family, asking if others have copies of these picture or know when they were taken of our fascinating  ancestor who moved in his life from the lush, but isolated mountains of western North Carolina, to a Japan awakening from centuries of  self-imposed isolation from the West. 

 

Educated at the University of North Carolina, Class of 1889 at Chapel Hill, Will was ordained a Southern Methodist Church pastor at his own Sutherland Methodist Church in Ashe County.  (My own great grandfather, G. W. Washington, was ordained a lay pastor in the same denomination in the 1870s in the same church.)  It is from Will's memoirs that we know so much of Isaac and Caroline Greer Wilson and the travail of the Civil War in the family.

I would like to think in the picture below, evidently taken in Will's home, that one can see the likeness of his mother, Caroline Greer Wilson, in the middle photograph on the shelf above Will's head.  Unfortunately who the women are with Will are not identified, but one assumes they are connected to his church or school work in Japan.

 

The above picture is labeled in English as having been processed by K. Mimura in Okayama, Japan.  These pictures may have been taken as publicity for the Southern Methodist Church and its missionary work in Asia.  My belief is my great grandmother, Frankie Wilson Osborne, obtained them from her brother to share with her Anderson Street Methodist Church missionary society in Bristol, Tennessee in the 1920s.

 

When World War II began, Okayama housed a Japanese Army camp. On June 29, 1945, the city was attacked with fire bombs. Almost all the city was burned, and more than 1700 people were killed. Okayama suffered terrible damage in the war, losing more than 12,000 households.  In near by Hiroshima, another site of Will's work, the U.S. Army Air Corp also dropped the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 killing over 80,000 immediately.   Below the ruins of Okayama and Will's work after the incendiary raid. (Wikipedia)

 

 

At that time in 1945, Will Wilson had been in retirement in his Durham, North Carolina home for almost 15 years.  Whatever must have been his emotions that horrid summer during the War when his life's work and many of his Japanese friends were destroyed?  One can scarce imagine his conflicted feelings.

 

  

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Holliman at glennhistory@gmail.com.  Likewise at the Holliman-Long Ancestry.com site.  Or visit www.bholliman.com, a virtual archive.

 

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part XVI

A Damascus (Virginia) Story, Part I
by Pearl Osborne Wright

In 1970, my Great Aunt Pearl Osborne Wright wrote of her first memories of Damascus, Virginia.  She was 80 years old at the time.  The mountain communities of that part of Appalachia moved literally from a frontier environment to modern America in her lifetime.  Her remembrances, now available at New River Notes on the web, capture the passing of the 19th Century.- Glenn N. Holliman

Please check with Ancestry.com for this series of stories in the Gallery of those listed here.

"The year was 1897.  I was seven years old when my parents, George and Frances Wilson Osborne, left Boone, North Carolina to make their home on a farm near Blountville, Tennessee.  Our furniture was packed in wagons.  Father, Mother, Aunt Alta Osborne and her baby son Lawrence, and I rode in a beautiful black surrey, one of those that inspired the song, 'Surrey with the fringe on Top'." (Pearl omits the presence of her own baby sister, Mayme Torrence Osborne Stansbery.)

Below, not a surrey but an unknown young lady of Damascus, Virginia tries to pull a wagon and two other females.  The lady in the black hat, I believe, is Pearl Osborne Wright. This picture may have been around 1910.  Notice the light pole which carried electricity. Pearl's husband, David, was in charge of the local electric generator for the community.



"The trip was a lark for my five older brothers as they walked, ran along beside or sometimes rode the furniture-bearing wagons.  I helped care for Baby Lawrence.  He wore long white dresses and petticoats, all tucked and lace-trimmed.  It kept us all busy keeping him happy on such a long trip.  We travelled along with other wagons until we reached Damascus.  Here our trail turned westward.  My father was very impressed with the Damascus community, and I think he secretly planned to return there to live.

One of the highlights of our journey happened just north of Damascus. The Beaver Creek had to be forded at what was later known as Vail's Mill.  The furniture laden wagons had gone ahead and were across the creek.  Our horses had entered the water, slowly pulling the surrey.  As we reached the half-way mark in the river, one of the wheels hit a large rock, and we could not move.  After much splashing, wading, pulling and pushing, we reached the bank.  The wheel was repaired and we were on our way again.  The rest of the journey was uneventful.

After we had settled on the farm and had things going smoothly, my father bought and successfully operated a large mercantile store in Blountville."



Above, photographed is the George Washington and Frances Wilson Osborne family that made the wagon trek from Cave Cove, North Carolina through Damascus, Virginia to Blountville, Tennessee in 1897.  This picture was made in that time period.  Front row left to right: Bill Osborne (1892-1968, G.W. Osborne (1844-1927), Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940) and Mayme Osborne Stansbery (this writer's grandmother, 1896-1943).  Back row: Bascom Wilson Osborne (1887-1970), Leroy Osborne (1879-1948) Pearl Osborne Wright (the author of these memories, 1890-1980)) and Bishop Osborne (1881-1965).  Also on the trip but not pictured were Toby Osborne (1876-1951), his wife, Alta Holtsclaw Osborne (d 1933), and their son, Lawrence.

Some Families of Damascus, Virginia, Part XIV

The Larger Family of Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright
by Glenn N. Holliman

In 1938, two cousins and an aunt from Bristol, Tennessee visited Doris Osborne Akers (1913-1980) and Gladys Osborne Adema (1914-1998) at the home of Dave and Pearl Osborne Wright (1890-1980) in Damascus, Virginia.  The two cousins were my Aunt Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006) and my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015).  Their mother, my grandmother, Mayme Osborne Stansbery (1896-1943) was with them.

Posed in front of the Wright Inn (their home) in Damsacus in the late 1930s is from left to right Doris, Louise, Mayme, Geraldine and Gladys.

In 1938, America was still emerging from the Great Depression, Hitler was grabbing Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, and in Damascus, the Civilian Conservation Corp was about to close down its forest restoration projects.  The United States was entering a debate on whether a huge arms build up was necessary to counter the growing militarism of Japan and Germany.  The world stood at the cusp of violent change and war.

In 2011, numerous America wars later, the only survivor of the group photo, Geraldine, returned with her son, Glenn N. Holliman (yours truly b 1946) and one of the sons of Gladys, Bob Adema, on the left. We stood in front of the old Wright Inn, now owned by others.  Yes, just as in 1938, the country was emerging from a Great Recession, but fortunately today our Asian wars are winding down, not up.

When We Were Greers, Part IV

by Glenn N. Holliman

In the early 1700s, our Ancestors Prospered along the Gunpowder River

Much of this article is from Maryland's Early Settlers Book, No. 18 under James Greer.

On Ancestory.com one will find family trees under Greer, Taylor and Day.

By 1688 the marriage of James Greer, first generation Scotsman to Maryland, and Ann Taylor (my generations 8th great grand parents (8th GGP), resulted in the birth of John Greer, Sr (b. between 1682 - 1688). John, Sr. in 1704 married Sarah Day (my generation's 7th great grandparents), the daughter of Nicholas and Sarah Day (my generation's 8th great grandparents) at St. John's Episcopal parish at Joppa, then Baltimore County, now Herford county.

The church was an unpainted log structure, 20 ft by 40 ft that soon, as did most untreated wooden structures, crumbled before the elements. Today, the Edgewood Officer's Club of the famous Aberdeen Proving Ground occupies the site.

Days Cove, named after our Day family line, is a backwater bay of the Gunpowder River near Joppatown, Maryland. Our 8th great grandfather, Nicholas Day, owned land here near Interstate 95 and Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway. Photostaken October 2010 by Glenn N. Holliman along Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway , south of Joppatown.


John and Sarah (7th great grandparents), purchased land near her father's plantation, Nicholas Day, along the Great Falls of the Gunpowder River. John's grandfather John Taylor (10th great grandfather), father of Arthur Taylor (9th great grandfather), lived near the ferry along the south side of the Gunpowder.

The old map belows shows Joppa, the Gunpowder, a ferry and the first roads in what is now Herford County, Maryland. The current major port of Baltimore is west of Joppa, not shown on this map.

We know that in 1687, Arthur Taylor sold 75 acres of land from 'Arthur's Choice on the south side of a branch of the Gunpowder River, called Bird Run to James Greer and daughter, Ann Taylor Greer. Bird Run is now the Bird River which flows through a modern suburban mall in Whitemarch, Maryland, not far from Days Cove. Arthur Taylor was the oldest son of one John Taylor. Arthur had acquired the property in 1683. This land will eventually become the site of Joppa, a major port that later disappears and becomes a classic American ghost town.

Ironically, also along the Gunpowder another family, the Stansberys, had settled. Stansberys live in and around Baltimore to this day. One of the Stansbery families will treck south in the 1700s, and generations later will result in my grandfather, Charles S. Stansbery, Sr. (1893 - 1957). Charles will marry Mayme Osborne, whose grand mother was, yes, one Caroline Greer Wilson (1828 - 1911). My immediate family has deep Maryland roots!

Reaching Out to Many Branches of the Osborne/Wilson Tree

by Glenn N. Holliman

Those of you reading this posting are descendants of Frances Wilson Osborne (1851 - 1940) and George Washington Osborne, Jr. (1846 - 1927). The ancestors of this couple braved the North Atlantic to come to the New World. Some of these persons, our great grandparents, uncles and aunts, became the most famous frontier men and women in American history. Many were pioneers who fought Native Americans, later the British and Tories, and finally each other in a Civil War that took the lives of many of our direct ancestors.

The descendants and ancestors of this couple go by the names of Osborne, Wilson, Greer, Wilcoxson, Brown, Boone, Morris, Wright, Adema, Noeltner, Aker, Sherwood, MacKenzie, Hayes, Holliman, Stansbery, Payne, Murphy, Hensley and Jahn. No doubt more can be added.

By using this blog site articles and photos can be archived and available to all family members. Your comments, articles, family trees, corrections, photographs, diaries and old letters are most welcome. In this format I, you and loved ones can hand off our family stories to the future. I invite all to join. My email address is Glennholliman@Embarqmail.com.

Frankie Osborne, as my generation's great grandmother is known, was born deep in the Appalachian Mountains of Ashe County, North Carolina. Millard Fillmore was president of the United States when she entered this world, and Franklin D. Roosevelt when she died. She lived through and during four major wars including the one that most affected her life, the American Civil War (1861-1865).

This triple photo display of George Washington Osborne, Jr is in an album passed down from Mayme Osborne (one of G.W.'s two daughters) to Louise Stansbery Sherwood and her sister, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick. G.W. appears to be in his 50s which would date these pictures in the 1890s.

Frankie's father and several cousins died in that war, and her husband to be, George Washington Osborne, Jr. was wounded twice. If G.W. (as he was known) had not encountered a nasty knife thrust into his side from a Union sympathizer, he and Frankie might not have met and married. She was 14 when G.W. came to her house, deep in Wilson Cove near Trade, Tennessee, to recuperate from his injury.

Frankie nursed the 19 year old G.W., and in January 1867, when she was all of 15 1/2 years, they married. That marriage lasted until G.W.'s death in June 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee. Six sons and two daughters grew to maturity from this couple.