I’ve always had a feeling new information might emerge just as I was putting the manuscript to bed, and sure enough, that’s what’s happened. I’m not upset or dismayed — quite the contrary. But it does make me anxious for the future as I get close to publication. I want […]
How was your New Year’s celebration? Ours was low-key — a family party with several friends who also have small children. Nothing outrageous, nothing fancy. Mostly, pot luck, with too many carbs, and a gathering around the large-screen television to alternately curse and bless the teams playing in the Fiesta […]
It is hard to believe I started Emmett’s project in May, 2013, with nothing more than curiosity about the handsome photo of some obscure guy whom I originally thought was an asshole standing in the way of my great-grandmother and her friends’ attempts to win suffrage. That first impression was […]
On Monday, the most awesome, intrepid, and wonderful Jacki Wilson (no relation to Emmett or Bill), friend, colleague and archivist, with the University of West Florida Historic Trust, told me that she was digging around in an old house, collecting artifacts for the UWF Historic Trust, and she came across this: […]
I like to check on my favorite databases every six or eight weeks, so as not to miss any updates. And — SCORE! — the excellent Chronicling America newspaper database (of the Library of Congress) had added several years of The Pensacola Journal since my last visit! And what an […]
A walk in the woods not far from my house, in Rock Creek Park. On the right side, you find a pile of stones. These are not ordinary stones. Hidden in a national park are the stones of the old facade of the East front of the U.S. Capitol; […]
I believe that a major information source is still out there — and I have to turn this over to the Internet. Or, maybe the Twitterverse. I’m in search of any living descendant of Emmett’s older brother, confidante, law partner, and executor Cephas Love Wilson. I’ve seen examples where colleagues […]
In one of the Wilson family genealogies, there’s a curious statement recorded by Emmett’s nephew. It says: “…my mother always said that Emmett fell in with some rich Northern lumberman who started him drinking, and he drank himself to death.” Hm. A rich Northern lumberman. Who could that be? Over […]
Emmett’s law office in Sterling, Illinois, in January 1906, was located at 102 East Third Street, on the second floor of the two-story Wolf Building. The law firm was located atop the Killen & Peters shoe store, which also did a brisk business in boots, according to ads in the […]
Am I going soft on Emmett’s womanizing older brother, Cephas Love Wilson? A friend who had read this recent essay on Cephas asked me the other day if I had changed my mind about Cephas — did I now view him as less of an antagonist? I told her it wasn’t […]
Tell my story. 