Pieces of
the Wilson Family
By David G.
Johnston
Online
Research by Ken Hofstad
Conversations
with My Mother Comeal Johnston, Brother Ron Johnston, Sister Peggy Baker, and
Uncle Luke Wilson
Some facts
Shared by Cousins Bob & Dianne Wilson, Gloria Wilson, Max Wilson, Betty Wilson-Shelton,
Steven Wilson-St. James
Pictures
Provided By Comeal Johnston and Luke Wilson
This information is
only a sketch of our Wilson family history and I hope to add much more to it in
the future. My intention is to preserve as much about our family as I can. Who
are they? Where did they come from? What were their lives like in the time that
they lived? I want to share this with the present and future generations before
it all becomes lost in time.
My apologies for any
errors in this and if brought to my attention, I will gladly make corrections. David G. Johnston
The
story began with the birth of John W. Wilson about 1825 somewhere in Georgia.
John appears in Georgia in 1850, living with wife Francis Greenway, no
children, next to her relative Alexander Greenway's place in Hall County. In
the 1860 census, he is farming in the first district of Cherokee County,
Alabama not far and east of Gadsden Town. Wife Francis is there too, with son
William and daughter Samantha. In the 1866 Alabama State census the family of
six shows up in Centre Township between Gadsden and Gainesville. Son Elbert D.
Wilson was born July 11, 1866 in Cherokee County. Alabama. The district in
Cherokee County where the family lived during the Civil War is directly in the
path of General Sherman in his march to Atlanta. One might speculate that
John's family left their devastated region after the war and moved West.
In
the 1880 census he and Francis are living in Poland Twp., Greene County AR with
Mary and Daniel. We are not sure why Elbert does not show up in the census with
his parents. None of the family can be located in the 1870s census. Elbert does
not appear in the 1880 census with his parents. In 1885 on August 30, Elbert
married Cora J. Hiatt in Greene County AR near Paragould where his son William
Grover (Pat) was born in 1893. In 1900 he and the family are living in
Jonesboro, AR. There were nine children altogether. Eva A., Charles Wesley,
Sanford, William Grover (Pat), Marvin Homer (Dick), Garland Jennings (Kink),
Daniel Jefferson (Dutch), Lewis M., and Herschel R. (Pug). Cora died August 18,
1908 in Greene County, Arkansas and was buried in Clark Chapel Cemetery near
Paragould.
In
1910 Elbert appears in Blytheville with his second wife Pearl, the children
Charley, Sanford, Grover, Marvin, Garland, Jeff, Lewis, and Herschel. He is
renting and his occupation is house builder. His last residence was Dell, where
he died February 12, 1917 but he was buried with his first wife Cora and son
Sanford at Clark Chapel Cemetery between Paragould and Jonesboro. Dr. Ferguson of
Blytheville signed the death certificate. Cause of death listed as gastritis.
Isaac
Richard Hilliard was born in May 1856 in Illinois. His father was from
Tennessee and mother also probably from Tennessee. Apparently known as Richard
in later years, he is with his mother and stepfather in Williamson County,
Illinois in the 1870s census. In 1880 he is single and working as a farm
laborer in crab Orchard Township, Williamson, Illinois with his brother Thomas.
Their farm is directly next door to that of his mother and stepfather. On
November 17, 1881 he married Cynthia McGowan. Both sets of parents homesteaded
land in Crab Orchard Township, Illinois in the mid-1850s and were neighbors so
both Isaac (Richard) and Cynthia must have known each other as children. In
1900 he is listed as Isaac and is renting a farm in LaFant Township, New Madrid
County, Missouri with his wife and four children. In 1910 he and wife Cynthia
and children Bess and Clara are in Little River Township, Pemiscot County,
Missouri where he rents and is a wagon team handler.
After
1910 he and Cynthia with daughters Bess and Clara moved to a farm near Dell and
the owner built the house they lived in specifically for them. The plantation
was later purchased by B. S. Simmons probably in the late 20s or early 30s.
Isaac
(Richard) left Cynthia for a woman with the surname Ragsdall or Ragsdale
probably from the Dell area sometime between 1915 and 1920. He was still alive
at least through the early 1920s. It has been reported that he came to visit
his daughter Bess shortly after her first child Avon was born and that is the
only grandchild of daughter Bess that he ever saw. I have not been able to
document Isaac Richard or Cynthia in the 1920 census. He died sometime before
1930.
After
Isaac left Cynthia she moved to Conran, Missouri to live with her son Jim
Hilliard and his family until his death around 1934. When her daughter Bess and
husband Pat Wilson came to the funeral in Conran Missouri, they brought her
back to Dell, Arkansas to live with them on the farm they worked on for B. S. Simmons.
Cynthia died on the farm and Dell in 1936 and was buried at the Elmwood
Cemetery in Blytheville, Arkansas.
The
Wilsons
By David
G. Johnston
August 3rd
2009
1917
April 18 William Grover (Pat) Wilson marries Bessie
Mae Hilliard in New Madrid County, Missouri, the area Bess was most likely born.
They actually met in the Dell, Arkansas area where they both lived with their
families.
 |
| William Grover (Pat) Wilson, 1915 |
 |
| Bessie Mae Hilliard, 1916 |
1917
July 9 The
United States enters WW I. William
Grover (Pat) Wilson and Brother Garland
(Kink) Wilson register for the draft.
1918
November WWI ends.
1919
March 22 Avon Wilson
is born at Half Moon, Arkansas.
 |
| Raymond or Avon Wilson |
1920
Census records show
William Grover, Bessie Wilson and son Avon renting a farm north of the JLC and
E Railroad (Jonesboro, Lake City, and Eastern Railroad also known as the Moose
train that ran between Blytheville and Jonesboro) and north of Dell, Arkansas, which
would be the Half Moon, Arkansas area.
1921
January 22 Comeal
Wilson is born at Half Moon, Arkansas.
 |
| Comeal Wilson (?) |
1923
February 26 Raymond
Wilson is born at Half Moon, Arkansas. While Raymond was still a baby, on a
cold day and by wagon, the family moves to a house on Lilly Street in Blytheville, Arkansas and Pat works
as a carpenter.
1925
January 31 Claude
Wilson is born in Blytheville, Arkansas in the house on Lilly Street.
 |
| Pat Wilson and son Claude (?) |
1927
May 9 A large tornado
hits Poplar Bluff, Missouri, killing 60 people and injuring over 300. The heart
of the town is in ruins.
1927 Circa
Prior to May the family
moves from the house on Lilly Street to a three room house off Franklin Street
and down the railroad track for a short time. Pat goes to work temporarily in
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, after the big tornado of 1927 to help clean up and
rebuild the city.
1927 Circa
The family moves from
the three room house to a house on the corner of S. Franklin St. and next to
the railroad track. There is a little slump block store building across the
street. The now empty store building still stands as of June 2009.
 |
| Bess Wilson with son Avon in from of her and daughter Comeal front right |
 |
| Bess Wilson, Maxine, Comeal, Clara, Claude, GW, Avon, JL, Holland |
1927
September Comeal
starts first grade at the J. C. Sudbury School on Franklin Street were older
brother Avon is already attending. Times are good and the family owns a car, is
accumulating nice furnishings, and Bess even has a pump organ.
1929
The big stock market
crash of 1929 and the Great Depression began.
1929
July 1 Louis Denton
Wilson is born in Blytheville, Arkansas in a house they lived in at 638 S. Lake
St.
1930
Census shows they are
still living at 638 S. Lake Street and Bess’s mother Cynthia McGowan-Hilliard
is also with them temporarily on a visit from Conran, Missouri where she lives
with son Jim. Pat is working as a carpenter.
 | ||
| Cynthia McGowan-Hilliard and Grandsons Raymond & Claude |
 |
| Back row L-R-Cousin Maxine Holland, Comeal, Avon; Middle row-JL & GW Holland; Front row-Claude, doll, Raymond |
1932
April 7 Nelson Wilson
is born in Blytheville in the house at 638 S. Lake Street. The family lived in
this house for three-four years.
1934
January. The Big Dust
Storm from the Dust Bowl era reached a mile high in the Midwest and spanned all
the way to New York City.
1934-1035 Circa
Pat, Bess and the six
children all moved to a house on the B. S. Simmons farm in Dell, Arkansas for
work. They first lived in a house with two large rooms and later moved to the
house that was originally built for Isaac Richard Hilliard and Cynthia, Bess's
parents, by the previous owner of the Simmons farm on the road out past the
wooden bridge. This may be the house across from the Brinn’s. Jim Hilliard dies
in Conran, Missouri and Cynthia comes to live with Pat and Bess.
1936
Grandma Cynthia
McGowan-Hilliard dies on the farm in Dell. I believe it was a house across from
the Brinn’s. She was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery.
1939
This is the most
significant year ever for the movie industry with the premiere of Gone With the
Wind and the Wizard of Oz along with several other great classics.
1939
September 8 William
Grover Wilson dies of pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosed that July by Dr. J. L.
Tidwell. At that time the family was living in a two-story house on the Simmons
farm. He was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Blytheville, Arkansas.
 | |||
| Back row-Raymond, Avon, Bess, Comeal, Luke, Claude; Front row-Nelson & William Grover (Pat) Wilson, 1939 |
1940 Circa
Comeal Wilson goes to
work as a store clerk for Taylor Freeman in his dry goods store in Dell with
the stipulation that she have Tuesdays off to help her widowed mother Bess with
the laundry. This was in the days when doing laundry involved boiling water in
an iron pot out in the yard and scrubbing the clothes on the porch by hand
using a washtub and rub board. Her five brothers all worked on the Simmons
farm. Her future husband Willis Cayce Johnston is already working as a butcher
in the Freeman store.
1941
Raymond Wilson
graduates high school at the Dell school and goes to Poplar Bluff to live with his
uncle Homer (Dick) Wilson. This leaves Claude, Louis, and Nelson at home and
they continue to work for B. S. Simmons on his farm.
1941
December 7 Pearl
Harbor is bombed by the Japanese and the United States enters WWII.
1942
September 2 Avon is
drafted into the Army.
1942
Life in 1942 for the
family at the Simmons farm house near Dell.
 |
| Nelson & Luke, 1942 |
 |
| Bess Wilson 1942 |
 |
| Claude & Comeal, 1942 |
1942 Circa
Willis Cayce Johnston
divorces his first wife Grace King who also worked as a clerk and Taylor
Freeman store. For a short time Cayce lived in a tiny trailer house park next
to the Freeman store. He later rented a room from Mr. and Mrs. Brewsaugh but when Mr Brewsaugh died, Mrs. Brewsaugh asked him to move out because it was not
proper for her as a widow to have a man in the same house. He then rented a
room in one of the Simmons's farm houses out past the wooden bridge. This is the
same house that was originally built for Isaac Richard Hilliard and Cynthia McGowan-Hilliard.1943
January 29 Raymond is
drafted into the Army.
1944
November 5 Cayce
Johnston marries Comeal Wilson. It was a double ring ceremony and the other
groom was his friend and ex-brother-in-law Raz King and his bride Joy.
1944
December 7 Claude
Wilson joins the army and retires as a major.
1944
Cayce and Comeal
first lived in a three room with back porch apartment/duplex on Main Street
three doors up from the Baptist Church. It was owned by Taylor Freeman but they
sublet it from the renter Bertha Smith while she went to live with her son C. A.
Smith and his wife Juanita and their son. This is the same C. A. Smith that own
the C. A. Smith Store in town. When Cayce and Comeal bought their furniture
they moved to the other side of the duplex which had four rooms. Cayce's oldest
daughter from his first marriage, 11-year-old Betty Jo, comes to live with them
and stays between three and four years.
1945 Circa
Cayce and Comeal go
to St. Louis, Missouri in order to find work and live with his brother Mitchell
Johnston and his wife Alene. Cayce works as a butcher in a meat company and
Comeal gets hired as a waitress in a small restaurant but Cayce would not let
her go to work. Cayce was in the process of being inducted into the Army and
was stricken with spinal meningitis and almost died in the hospital. After his
recovery they returned to Dell.
1945
July 4 Raymond Wilson
marries Katherine Guffey.
1945
August-WWII ends.
1945
November 4 Ronald
Gene Johnston is born of Willis Cayce Johnston and wife Comeal in the
Blytheville hospital.
+in+Dell+AR+present+site+of+the+Dell+Cafe+across+from+the+Mayor%27s+office.jpg)
+in+Dell+AR+present+site+of+the+Dell+Cafe+across+from+the+Mayor%27s+office.jpg)
1946 Circa
Cayce buys the
restaurant business across from Dave Cranford's Barber shop on Main Street in
Dell and leases the building owned by friends Tull Johnson and his wife Alice
Freeman, granddaughter of Taylor Freeman. The wooden building was originally
called the Dell Mercantile and was built circa 1900. Cayce added a lunch
counter and meat counter and a small kitchen in back. It also had a few booths,
a Hallmark card display case, and a pinball machine. Comeal says that business
was good and the revenue from the pinball machine paid the rent on the
building. The building has been razed since and a brick building was built on
the site prior to June 2003 and is now called the Dell Café. Now that Cayce no
longer works for Taylor Freeman (Comeal quit when they married) they are asked
to vacate the duplex on Main Street that Freeman owns. They move to a country
house out on the road before the wooden bridge owned by Earl Magers but later
had to move to another house down the road because Earl Magers had a nephew
that got married and Earl wanted the house for him. Both of these houses had
electricity. During a storm the house they were living in got hit by lightning
and burned out the motor in their brand-new refrigerator they had bought from
Montgomery Wards.
1947
February 1 Claude
Wilson marries Ernestine Williams of Leachville, Mississippi County, Arkansas.
1947
April 12 Gloria Ann
Wilson is born of Raymond Wilson and wife Catherine and Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
1947
December 4 Robert
Allen Wilson is born of Claude Wilson and wife Ernestine at Fort Sill,
Comanche, Oklahoma.
1947 -- 1940 8C or
Cayce and Comeal
moved to a small white four room house in Dell on Wilson Street recently built
and owned by Dave Cranford and wife Crystal (Kerbough) Cranford and lived there
from 3 to 4 years.
1948
July 26 David Glenn
Johnston is born of Willis Cayce Johnston and wife Comeal in the Blytheville
hospital.
1948
November 5 Max
Raymond Wilson is born of Raymond Wilson and wife Catherine at Poplar Bluff,
Missouri.
1948 Circa
 |
| Bess Wilson's home on the B. S. Simmons Plantation, Dell, AR, 1944 |
1949 -- 1950 circa
Louis Wilson leaves
his tractor driving job with B. S. Simmons and works for Billy Keener at his
ESSO gas station on Highway 18 next to Dell. Nelson Wilson leaves his tractor
driving job with Simmons and goes to work at the Texaco gas station for Buddy
Armstrong. Bess, Lewis, and Nelson have to move off the Simmons farm to the
house on Highway 18 by Dell.
1950
The Korean War
starts.
1950
November 8 Betty Sue
Wilson is born of Raymond Wilson and wife Catherine in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
1950 circa
Avon Wilson marries
Dora Lee Tharp.
1950-1951 Circa
Cayce sells the
restaurant and buys a grocery store business across the street and down on the
corner where the current post office parking lot is now.
1951
February Louis (Luke)
Wilson is drafted into the army and is sent to Fort Lewis, Washington where he
meets his future wife Annamae Lundgren and eventually settles there. He spent
some time at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site while in the Army.
1951
September Ronald Gene
Johnston enters first grade at the Dell School.
1951
February 4 Mary (Kay) Katherine Wilson is born of Avon
Wilson and wife Dora Lee Tharp in Blytheville, Arkansas.
1951
November 20 Claudia
Elaine Wilson is born of Claude Wilson and wife Ernestine in Wurtzburg,
Germany.
1951 -- 1950 Circa
Nelson Wilson is
drafted into the army and goes into combat in Korea. After the war he takes a
job at the Ford auto manufacturing plant in Flint, Michigan.
1952 January Cayce
sells grocery store and takes a job as a fireman for Procter & Gamble and
the family moved to Pantex, Texas along with four other families from Dell. A
truck driver in Dell named Cummins finds out about the jobs from his brother-in-law
and future boss Carol Holman that is
married to his sister Evelyn and already lives in Pantex. He moves the five
families including his own in his moving van to Pantex. The other families were
Cayce and Comeal Johnston, Comeal’s Brother Avon Wilson and wife Dora Lee
Tharp, Curtis and Virginia Downs, Junior Gillian and his wife Oleta. There is a
whole separate story involving these five families that moved to Pantex Texas.
Initially they lived in an old wooden fire station building that had been
converted to apartments specifically for them due to a housing shortage at the
time. This business called Procter & Gamble that is known as a soap manufacturing
company was a cover up for a top-secret operation for the U. S. Government that
was operating a bomb assembly plant. In the 1970s we see on the news that
nuclear warheads are being shipped from Pantex, Texas to the nuclear submarine
base in Bangor, Washington via the ‘White Train’. .. ..
1952
March Adah
Usry-Johnston, Cayce’s mother dies. She was living in the cottage on her sister
Lilly Rectors property at 2121 W. Rose Street in Blytheville, Arkansas and
became ill. Cayce and Comeal along with Ron and Dave drove nonstop from Pantex
back to the Blytheville and got there shortly before she died. She was buried
in Elmwood Cemetery, Blytheville, Arkansas.
1953
July 27 The Korean
War ends.
1953 circa
Cayce and Comeal and
the two boys moved to the new two-bedroom tract house at 2404 Oak Dr.,
Amarillo, TX. Cayce gets laid off from Procter & Gamble and he goes into
business with another fireman and opens a truck stop restaurant out on Route 66
in Amarillo. That business location had rough clientele and Cayce sold his part
and opened another restaurant in an old brownstone building in downtown
Amarillo maybe on Fillmore Street.
1953
June 21 Louis Wilson
marries Annamae Lundgren born in Minnesota but living in Ballard, Washington at
this time with her parents John and Vida.
1953
October 2 Kenneth
Avon is born of Avon Wilson and wife Dora Lee and Panhandle, Texas, near Pantex.
1954 Circa
Cayce sells his café
in Amarillo and takes a temporary job with the Borden Milk Company delivering
milk. His route is near the border in Oklahoma and has to be away from his
family during the week. He has been hired by the Boeing Company in Seattle,
Washington but is doing the milk delivery job while waiting for his son Jack to
be born before moving the family to Seattle.
1954
September David Glenn
Johnston enters first grade at Robert E. Lee elementary school in Amarillo, Texas
where Brother Ronald Gene is in the fourth grade.
1954
October 9 Jacqueline
Wilson is born of Claude Wilson and wife Ernestine at Fort McPherson, Atlanta,
Georgia.
1954
October 13 Jack Wayne
Johnston is born of Willis Cayce Johnston and wife Comeal in Amarillo, Texas.
1954
November Cayce and
Comeal sell the Amarillo house, store their furniture and a few days before
Thanksgiving set out for Seattle, Washington with the boys and towing a small
rental trailer. Casey has taken a job there as a fireman for the Boeing
Airplane Company. They move in temporarily with Comeal’s brother Luke Wilson
and his wife Annamae in their tiny basement apartment at Ballard, Washington
near Seattle.
1955
April 21 Stephen
Louis Wilson is born of Louis (Luke) Wilson and wife Annamae in Seattle Washington.
1956 circa
Nelson Wilson moves
from Flint, Michigan to the Seattle area and lives with sister Comeal and
husband Cayce and three sons in Tukwila Washington.
1958 circa
Nelson Wilson marries
Ellen Willine Capa in Seattle, Washington.
1960
March 6 Gregory Lee Wilson is born of Nelson Wilson
and wife Ellen in Seattle, Washington.
1962
October 24 Twins
Patrick and Pamela Wilson are born of Claude Wilson and wife Ernestine at Fort
Polk in Leesville, Louisiana.
1966
April 15 Molly Joe
Wilson is born of Nelson Wilson and wife Ellen in Seattle, Washington.
**********************************************
If you have questions for David or would like to contact him, please email at:
khdj@cox.net
If you have questions for David or would like to contact him, please email at:
khdj@cox.net
