Friday, May 24, 2014, about 11 a.m.Chipley As the officer said, the old train depot in downtown Chipley wasn’t hard to find. Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting my car, in front of a seafoam-green building that definitely looked like a train station from the early 19th century. I note that […]
Friday, May 23, 2014 Once upon a time, U.S Highway 273 in Washington County, Florida, was a hard-packed dirt road. There were occasional ruts from wagon tires that dug deep after a heavy rain; the hot summer sun would dry the road quickly, and some of ruts would harden into […]
Page six of Katie Wilson Meade’s narrative continues from the trip out of the jungle back to civilization. This section picks up from the last sentence of page five in the previous post. The men walked along side of the wagon, so when the oxen got stubborn the men yelled […]
This week, I’ve been kicking around the idea that Emmett may or may not have been an American citizen. In our last post, we learned this was one of his hot buttons. And, we learned that his father, Dr. Francis Childria Wilson, decided to leave the United States to start […]
Before I contacted the Pensacola Historical Society to find out more about Emmett Wilson, I made copious pots of coffee and immediately dissected the three articles sent to me from Peg Vignolo of the West Florida Genealogical Society. Newspaper articles are rich with information — it’s not only the details IN […]
On April 27, 2013, I called the West Florida Genealogical Society in Pensacola, and spoke with researcher Peg Vignolo. I introduced myself, and explained what I was looking for. “Nope,” she told me after checking several resources. “We don’t have anything on Emmett Wilson other than what I’d already found […]
Here’s something new that turned up in Emmett Wilson research: A page honoring The Platonic Debating Society, which was the founding body of today’s Florida State University Debate Team. The photos come from the first yearbook published by the Florida Seminary West of the Suwannee River (which was FSU when […]
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 […]
Here’s information that Emmett’s youngest brother, Walker Wilson, was applying for membership in the Train Dispatcher’s Association of America (via Google docs). Deciphering the item — S.A.L. was the Seaboard Air Lines railroad. Walker’s employment with the railroad was not simply a family tradition, but an important employer in the […]
Here’s another new-to-me clipping discovered through routine checking of updated databases: Emmett’s father’s obituary contains interesting information. For example, even though Dr. Wilson had been ill for several days, his death may have been unexpected, as it was a ‘great shock.’ Dr. Wilson’s death information (from a second source) mentioned […]
Tell my story. 