Excellent sources and experts consulted thus far in the research.
As I write Emmett’s story, I always wonder how long he would have lived had he not drank himself to death. Several of the men in his family, particularly his twin brother Julian, were long lived. Emmett was 35 when he died of uremia on May 29, 1918. The website, […]
Of course, I’d love to have had everything available about Emmett Wilson to be accessible via the Internet. It would have certainly made my life easier as I dug around for primary sources in a variety of libraries and archives, both near and far, over the past five years! But […]
When I started tracking down Emmett’s secretaries, I didn’t know what to expect. Mostly I started looking for Emmett’s secretaries because I hit a brick wall with Emmett himself (there’s very little primary information from him). At present, I’ve found as much as I can about and from Emmett’s siblings […]
Cephas Love Wilson, Jr. was stationed in France in 1917, during which time he wrote home to his mother and father whenever he could, letting them know he was safe, and likely, telling them a sanitized — and probably censored — version of what was going on with him and […]
Want to know why writing Emmett’s book has been taking so long? I submit: I found this during my ‘go back and check databases for updates’ routine. Something I do every other month or so. The Chronicling America database is huge, which is why one would want to limit the […]
Bonnie Burnham, society editor of The Pensacola Journal predicted that the wedding of Emily Brent and Alba Warren would be one of ‘the most elaborate of all the weddings’, and it was one of the first weddings held after Lent — on Easter Monday. The article mentioning the Brent-Warren wedding […]
Yesterday’s essay about Emmett’s father, Dr. Francis C. Wilson, spurred me to pay a visit to one of the best-kept museum secrets here in metro Washington, D.C.: The National Museum of Health and Medicine. Just so you know — this is not a museum for the faint of heart or […]
My friend, the wonderful Sue Tindel, of the Jackson County (Florida) Circuit Clerk’s Office, used the title of today’s post to describe someone she knew once, who ironically, was also an alcoholic (but in recovery). The person she was describing was also, ironically, the same age as Emmett when he […]
Here is a fantastic, new-to-me, resource that I stumbled upon this morning! What’s nice is that this directory fills in some information spaces between censuses and city directory publications. It lists a lot important folks Emmett ran with (i.e., people who would pay to have their names listed, plus advertising), […]
It was a tough time to be Roman Catholic in Florida during the early 1900s. Heck, it was tough to be Catholic anywhere in the U.S. at that time. When Emmett moved back to Pensacola in 1906, to rebuild his career after his embarrassing tenure in Illinois, image was important. […]
Tell my story. 