Nellie Browning Mills (1876-1964) was never Emmett’s official secretary, but she did work for Emmett as she was the main stenographer and typist at the San Carlos Hotel in Pensacola, Florida from 1910 to at least 1917. Emmett used Nellie’s shorthand and typing services when he stayed at the San […]
Today, I visited Boligee, Alabama, population 328, in search of Mt. Hebron Cemetery, in a quest to locate Emmett’s grandparents, Cephas Love Wilson Sr. and Emily B. Wilson. Using the information posted on Find-A-Grave, and typing the address into Waze, I set out with my husband on Interstate 20/59 West, […]
I found this book on Alibris, a book reseller website. I like to check back for obscure Florida texts and anything that has Emmett’s name listed. This one’s been out of print for awhile. It was purged from the Dickinson Memorial Library in Orange City, Florida. It was cheap. […]
Maximilian Foster was a famous author and playwright when Emmett met him at an intimate dinner party given by his friend, Billy Crawford, in March 1908. In 1908, Foster’s oeuvre was mostly what I’d call low density literature — it doesn’t require a lot of deep concentration, and is something […]
The date? March 3, 1908, the day after Mardi Gras. The place? The private dining room in the The Osceola Club, Pensacola, Florida The occasion/connection? Good question. This is another oddball jigsaw puzzle in the life of Emmett Wilson that I like to work out. Not to sound disparaging of anyone sitting around […]
Worth thinking about: ‘The word disaster comes from the Latin compound of dis-, or away, without, and astro, star or planet; literally, without a star’ (Brain Pickings).
Did you know that Emmett got his professional start texting (of sorts) for a living? True. And if you think about it, telegraph operators were early ‘texters.’ (Here’s a great history of telegraphing — see the first half of the article for details about the importance of the telegraph in […]
The next information I have about Emmett’s nephew, Cephas Love Wilson Jr., is dated 1905 — he’s 10 years old — and back in the day, having one’s name printed in newspaper (especially The Pensacola Journal, a paper with a much larger circulation than the Marianna Times-Courier) was a big […]
Charles E. Pleas was a Quaker and a professional photographer who relocated to Chipley in the 1890s. He was of several professional photographers who opened studios in Chipley in the early 1900s. Pleas was born in Indiana in 1867, the son of Elwood and Sarah Griffin Pleas. Elwood was a lumber […]
The last time I actually spoke with a bona-fide telephone operator was about 15 years ago, and that was only after working my way through a robotic menu of options, and waiting on hold for about five minutes while listening to classic rock converted to elevator music. It must have […]
Tell my story. 