In which my great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge and African-American lawyer George T. Wassom split the tiny Republican voter turnout in a race for a seat in the state House of Representatives.
Wilmington Morning Star, 16 November 1894.
Author Archives: Lisa Y. Henderson
From A to izzard; or, the bedrock bottom of Republicanism.
Remarks at a mass meeting of the “straight out” Republicans, including those of my great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge: 
Goldsboro Daily Argus, 26 September 1894.
Honor graduate.
From “The American Negro in College 1943-44,” The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, volume 51, number 8 (August 1944).
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Macy Oveta Aldridge was born 20 January 1923 in Dudley, Wayne County, to John J. and Ora Bell Mozingo Aldridge. She attended Wayne County public schools, then received an undergraduate degree from Georgia State College (now Savannah State University.) After her honorable discharge in 1946, she resumed her education at the University of Pennsylvania and Glassboro State College. Cousin Macy worked as a laboratory technician for the United States Army Medical Corps and then as a teacher. She married Clay J. Claiborne and was mother of three sons. Macy Claiborne died 12 October 1999 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Macy Aldridge Claiborne.
Funeral Program Friday: Jesse A. Henderson, Sr.
My father’s second older brother Jesse A. Henderson passed away 11 years ago.
Funeral Program Friday: Hattie Mae Holt Crawford.
Remembering my father’s first cousin, Hattie Mae.
Dorothy Whirley, Class of ’48.
1948 yearbook, Frederick Douglass Senior High School, Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
Senior Dorothy L. Whirley listed “no discrimination” as the characteristic of a true democracy, “stocking runs” as her pet peeve, and “to become successful” as her plan after graduation. Dorothy, the daughter of Matilda Whirley and McKinley Steward, was born in Charles City County, Virginia, in December 1929. Her grandmother was Emma Allen Whirley (1879-after 1930), daughter of Graham and Mary Brown Allen.
Signature Saturday, no. 8: the McNeelys.
My great-great-grandfather Henry W. McNeely taught for a few years after Freedom and surely could read and write. His wife Martha, despite her transparent assertions otherwise, could not. Their children received educations that they had been denied, and when Henry’s brother Julius died without direct heirs about 1913, all signed off on the distribution of his estate. (All except Addie McNeely Weaver, who had recently passed.)
Several of Henry’s grandsons’ signatures appear on World War II draft registration forms, including Luther’s son Robert H.; Edward’s son Quincy; and Addie’s son James.
Funeral Program Friday: Catherine Aldridge Davis.
Catherine Aldridge Davis, the last surviving of John and Louvicey Artis Aldridge‘s children, died at age 108.
Three tobacco barns burned.
Arsonists struck the Eureka community in the summer of 1960, destroying barns and tobacco at the Leslie Artis farm and the Adam Artis farm (owned by his descendants).
Wilson Daily Times, 23 July 1960.
Native pride.
DNA test results reflect only the tiniest inheritance, but today I honor my Native ancestors, the American Originals, on Indigenous Peoples Day.
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 