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 […]
The front page of The Pensacola Journal, 100 years ago today. If you click on the link here, you’ll see the entire front page as it was on May 29, 1918. Here’s a better look at Emmett’s death notice: Emmett’s death notice was obviously unexpected and thrown together with few […]
On March 10, 1918, Emmett’s older brother Percy Brockenbrough Wilson died of tuberculosis. Percy was only 46 years old, a well-respected and admired community physician. Percy’s funeral was held one hundred years ago today, March 12, 1918, in Sneads, Florida. It was likely well attended by most of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Friends, today I made a random check of historic newspaper databases, and I found a set that has been recently added to the University of Florida George A. Smathers Library Archive. This one: A totally new-to-me source that I haven’t seen either in microfilm or in hard copy to date. […]
In the early 1900s, if you got your name in the newspaper, it was a big deal. It indicated prominence in your community. If you think about it, the community news blurb columns were a sort-of equivalent to our Facebook. In Pensacola, these columns were mostly found in the Society […]
In Sunday’s online edition of The Washington Post, we find this interesting item: The survey doesn’t go back to Emmett’s time, but from what I’ve observed in the contemporary literature and media from his day, social drinking among those in his profession was ‘normal’, expected, typical. A man had a few […]
When I was in Pensacola, I had a list of places I wanted to visit, and as I put the list together, I realized I had a theme going — so, I decided to give it a name: The Death Tour. Apropos as we near Halloween. Stop one: 904 North […]
Tell my story. 