I didn’t do this….

Emmett joining Facebook from beyond the grave, maybe.

…but someone did.

Interesting.

Platonically Yours

Here’s something new that turned up in Emmett Wilson research:

Florida State Debate Team’s historic webpage. Emmett’s best friend, Paul Carter, was an all-star. And we’ve seen the photo on the right in an earlier Emmett Wilson post, here. Source: floridastatedebate.com

A page honoring The Platonic Debating Society, which was the founding body of today’s Florida State University Debate Team.

Emmett (L) and Paul. Roommates, friends, sometimes debate rivals. Source: FSU archive.

The photos come from the first yearbook published by the Florida Seminary West of the Suwannee River (which was FSU when Emmett attended in 1900-1901), T he Argo. In the center back row are Emmett and Paul, roommates and debate team members, looking in opposite directions. (Emmett was not a great debater in college, by the way; he was picked on in the yearbook for his lack of debate skills.)

The FSU page honoring the roots of the debate team has a lot of deep information, including articles from contemporary newspapers featuring Emmett, Paul, and other members of the Platonic Debating Society. There’s nothing new-to-me, which is a bit of a relief, because I hope by now (five-plus years into tracking down information on Emmett), I’ve been thorough.

I’ve got the minutes! Here’s a snippet from the minutes book of the Platonic Debating Society for 1901. Good old Emmett is right at the top!

What IS missing is a copy of the Platonic Debating Society’s minutes — lucky me, though — a copy of the pages featuring Emmett’s tenure in the Debating Society was kindly send to me by the Florida State University archivist a year or so ago. The minutes book is only a small volume; I believe I have everything I need from it relating to Emmett, but I still would like to read the entire book for complete perspective.

Perhaps it will be posted online one of these days!

Jule

Alas.

Jule & Emmett’s twin brother, Julian A. Wilson, about 1940. A wonderful lady and (lucky me), my cousin.

My dear cousin, Emmett’s grand niece, and the last individual alive to have seen Emmett in person.

With sadness, the passing of my cousin, Emmett’s grand niece, and gracious friend.

I was blessed and lucky to know her through my Emmett’s research. She encouraged me, helped me, shared generously anecdotes, photos, and information I could not have found otherwise.

I am going to miss her terribly.

Dora Wilson Smith & John Milton the V

Over the past few months, I’ve been doing a lot research to fill-in-the-blanks with information about Emmett’s siblings. Today, I found an interesting (and new-to-me) document with useful information about one of Emmett’s sisters!

Source: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution via Ancestry

Don’t you love the details going back several generations and documented for Emmett’s family? Awesome!

Headstone of Dora and her husband Bryan. Source: Find-a-grave.com

So, John Milton the V was the grand-nephew of Emmett; the grandson of his oldest sister, Eudora (‘Dora’) Neely Wilson Smith. I have been in contact with John Milton in the past; he was kind enough to copy for me a page from a family Bible. (I wrote about Dora and Bryan in an earlier post; you can read it here.)

I don’t know or have much information about Dora — I wish I did — and unfortunately, Mr. Milton didn’t either. He did say that she had a rather sad ending to her life, which is confirmed in the line noting her death — at Chattahoochie, Florida — the location of the Florida State Hospital. Mr. Milton told me Dora was not in her right mind in her later years, and had to be hospitalized as a result.

God bless her soul.

An Interview With Minnie

Towards the end of December, I came across an excellent interview conducted with Emmett’s close friend Minnie Kehoe. The text of the interview is below, along with the original source information.

Note that this wasn’t exactly an in-person interview; Minnie apparently took issue with one of the articles published by The Typewriter and Phonographic World, sent extensive comments supported by data, and included a photograph of herself — talk about a sistah who was sassy AND thorough.

This was an excerpt of the interview, by the way. Page 279 of the same publication is another (different) article.

You can find the article, published in The Journal of Commercial Education, volume 24, at this link.

Merry Christmas!

Good morning, Emmett Wilson family, and Merry Christmas!

Source: Yellow Springs Heritage

I’ve been away for a bit, primarily tied up with research and end-of-semester work. I’ll catch up this week with interesting Wilson-family items and whatnot.

Not her father’s daughter

I’m not one to go about picking on other’s research, but I suppose (with five years of Emmett Wilson research — that’s way over 10,000 hours of continuous digging and nit-picking) I can safely call myself an Emmett Wilson Expert.

…at least, that’s what my colleague (who is a credible researcher) over at the National Archives called me the other day, when I stopped by to do a source check. 😀

Anyway. Today’s post is about our resilient Minnie E. Kehoe.

Yesterday, I found this:

Source: Florida Bar

Details of the book.

A Who’s Who of the first woman lawyers of Florida. One of the nice things about this resource is not only does it provide the bios, but also the timeline of when the women were admitted to the Florida bar.

And yes, Minnie is listed as one of the first women lawyers in Florida, starting on page 8.

But, despite the fact the information has sources, there’s several errors. Here’s what I mean:

The first error in the rectangle.

Yes, Minnie was admitted to the bar in 1913; she worked in Pensacola for many years, then moved to Miami to be near family, namely her prominent brother J. Walter Kehoe, then she returned to Pensacola.

But Ervin’s incorrect about her father’s vocation. John Francis Kehoe, Minnie and Walter’s father, was a prominent bricklayer/brickmaker, and in fact supplied some of the materials for the construction of the Jackson County (Florida) Courthouse in Marianna.

From the Pensacola City Directory, 1885. Note the lack of lawyerly vocation info.

Minnie’s brother, J. Walter, was a U.S. Congressman for one term (1917-1919).

The next item to note:

John Kehoe died in 1906, so, even if John was an attorney, Minnie couldn’t have practiced with him.

Actually, in the 1913 Pensacola city directory, Minnie was a court reporter — she wasn’t exactly ‘practicing’ law right off the bat in 1913, and she wasn’t working with anyone else:

Pensacola City Directory for 1913. Note that brother Walter has a different office address.

Eventually, Minnie did have her own practice, as well as a business school (but today we’re talking about her as a lawyer):

Pensacola City Directory for 1916. By 1916, she had her own office, again, separate from her brother Walter. According to family information, she ALWAYS did it HER way.

I’m glad to see Minnie getting her due recognition, but disappointed in the sloppy data confirmation.

I’m a little surprised that a Bar publication would use sources with unverified information (i.e., Ervin’s statement about Minnie ‘may have been the daughter….’). Not to be a nitpicker, but c’mon; spend more than five minutes to confirm information that others may use in their own research.

Here’s to Minnie Kehoe. A woman of her own making, and definitely, not her father’s daughter.

Tell my story.

History, Mystery, Research in Progress