Category Archives: Alexander

Stories from the Smith and Maggie Alexander Family: The Brothers Enlist

The first Confederate Army conscription in April of 1862 called up men ages 18-35. Smith and his identical twin, Silas Washington Alexander were age 36. While Smith remained in the local militia, “Wash” and their two youngest brothers enlisted in Company B, 13th N. C. Infantry Regiment.

Oswald and Ulysses Columbus Alexander, as well as some of their cousins, served as musicians in the company. The custom was for a band of mostly brass instruments and drums to play during battle, to encourage the troops. The Alexanders lived in Mecklenburg County, in the Sharon church community, which had a band that performed for special occasions. The brothers were, most likely, members of that band.

Washington Alexander was elected to be a Second Lieutenant for Company B. His company fought in a long list of battles, and Washington was wounded at Williamsburg in May of 1862. Later that year, when the company was reduced by the high number of casualties, Wash would find himself the leading officer of the company.

The second conscription later in 1862 called on older men to serve. Smith left the Home Guard in March 1863, for Company F of the 5th Regiment of North Carolina Cavalry, also called the 63rd Regiment of N. C. Troops. His brothers James Wallace, age 38, and William Newton, 35, enlisted in the same company, and they served together on horseback.

Gettysburg

Company F served in battles that included the famous Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, as part of the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E. Lee. The cavalry’s duty during the battle was mainly in security and communications.

At Gettysburg, the Confederates, numbering about 75,000, fought against the Army of the Potomac, about 85,000 soldiers. It was a decisive and bloody battle in which the Confederates were turned back and retreated toward the flooded Potomac River. Company F, as part of Robertson’s Brigade, protected the flanks of the army as they crossed the river. Confederate casualties were huge, with almost 4,000 killed and well over 18.000 wounded. Union casualties were of similar numbers.

About one month later, on August 3, 1863, James Wallace Alexander died in Charlottesville, Virginia of typhoid fever. As many as 80% of soldiers’ deaths during the war were from sickness rather than wounds, as they lived outdoors in all weathers, used water from streams they themselves contaminated, and were constantly exposed to contagious diseases.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Smith’s name was listed on a hospital register in Richmond in September of 1863, apparently with a gunshot wound. William was wounded in June 1864, hospitalized in Charlotte with typhoid the following November, and returned to duty in January 1865.

Washington resigned his commission as an officer in September of 1862, citing the fact that he was left as the leading officer of Company B, and that he was too ill to fulfill his duties. Columbus was taken prisoner in the final battle of the war at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, and he later died of disease as a prisoner of war. Oswald survived the war and returned home, along with Smith and William. They had lost two brothers, several cousins and friends and suffered injuries that would affect them the rest of their lives.

On a lighter note:

Cousin Ham the Bad A**: “Get this horse off me or I’ll shoot you.”

Decades after the war, an old soldier named Paul B. Means, a former Colonel in Company F, wrote a story about a private in his company called “Ham,” (Hamilton) Alexander. Ham and his brother, Sydenham, were cousins a few times removed from Smith and his brothers. Ham was involved in heavy action during the Bristoe Campaign, around October 11, 1863. He turned his horse around too quickly and the horse fell, trapping him underneath. The resourceful Ham aimed his rifle at a dismounted Yankee, took him prisoner, and then made his prisoner get the horse off him.⁷

True story? You decide.

Sources:

1. Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N. C. State Dept. of Archives and History, Raleigh, N. C.

2. Stephen E. Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Militia Officers Roster: As Contained in the Adjunct General’s Officers Roster, (Wilmington, N. C.: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1992), p. 233; Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Home Guard Examinations 1863-1864, (Keysville, Va.: the author, 1993) pp i, ii.

3. Louis H. Manarin, North Carolina Troops: 1861-1865 A Roster, Vol. 2–Cavalry, (Raleigh: N. C. State Dept. of Archives and History, 1968), pp. 367-414.; Janet B. Hewett, The Roster of Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865, Vol. I (Wilmington, NC, 1995), p. 92.; Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N. C. State Dept of Archives and History, Raleigh, N. C.

4. “Gettysburg,” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/gettysburg, The American Battlefield Trust, accessed 5 Aug. 2025.

5. Walter Clark, editor, Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-65, 5 volumes, (Goldsboro, N. C.: published by the State of North Carolina, 1901,) p.577.

Stories from the Smith and Maggie Alexander Family: Smith Alexander in the Civil War

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Stonewall Jackson

Smith’s children passed down several stories about his experiences in the Civil War. One story was that he was a “private courier” for Stonewall Jackson.¹

Smith was an officer in the local militia company in the Sharon Church community of Mecklenburg County, N. C., and was therefore not eligible for the first Confederate army draft. Key members of the militia were kept as a “Home Guard” for the protection of the community. When Smith later enlisted, in March of 1863², General Jackson was only one month from his death by gunshot from his own soldiers, and Smith’s regiment didn’t serve under him. However, Jackson’s wife, Anna, was the daughter of Rev. Robert Hall Morrison, a prominent Presbyterian minister in Mecklenburg County and first president of Davidson College.³ Perhaps the courier duty that Smith served was to carry private messages between the general and Mrs. Jackson’s family.

His children said that he had a bad knee from a gunshot wound. His war records reveal that he spent some time in Winder hospital in Richmond, in September of 1863.⁴

Freemasons Help Each Other Survive the War

I heard two versions of the most interesting story about Smith’s military service:

The first account supposedly happened either to Smith or one of his brothers. He was circling a large oak tree, with a single Yankee soldier on the opposite side. When either of them got a chance, he fired at the other, taking cover behind the tree. The Confederate took a hit on the hand, which resulted in the loss of a thumb. Though he must have been in pain and shock, he kept fighting. Probably at this point the battle became, not an effort to kill the enemy, but an effort to survive. As time passed and neither gained the advantage, one of them called out, “If we keep on like this, both of us are going to die. What if I walk off one way and you go off in the other, and we both live?” And so they did.

Smith was not missing a thumb in his later years, so this either was not true or it happened to someone else.

The second version, (and possibly a separate incident) is that Smith, who had a reputation for being able to “thread a needle” with a .36 caliber pistol, gained the advantage over the Union soldier, though both were wounded. The Yankee was on the ground under the muzzle of Smith’s gun. When he was about to fire, the man made a secret sign that revealed he was a Freemason. The bond between Freemasons must have been stronger than the enmity between Confederate and Union soldiers, because Smith helped the man to his feet and let him go. The Yankee walked North and Smith walked South, and they never saw each other again.⁵

Civil War literature contains a number of similar stories about Freemasons. Soldiers on opposite sides sometimes treated one another with respect on account of their bond as Masons. Men who joined a Freemasons lodge took a pledge never to harm a fellow Mason. A Mason “sign of distress” is spoken of in some stories, and many men wore their Freemason pin on their uniforms.⁶

Sources:

1. Interviews with Henry Alexander and Lewis Alexander, grandsons of Smith Alexander, based on their conversations with Oswald, Belle, and Lelia Alexander, by the author in 2001.

2. Stephen E. Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Militia Officers Roster: As Contained in the Adjunct General’s Officers Roster, (Wilmington NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1992), p. 233; Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Home Guard Examinations 1863-1864, (Keysville, VA: the author, 1993) pp i, ii.; Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N.C. State Dept of Archives and History, Raleigh, N.C.

4. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of North Carolina, NARA Publication No. M270, images online at https://www.fold3.com/image/35359367.

5. Henry and Lewis Alexander, cited above.

6. Justin Lowe, “Freemasonry and The Civil War: A House Undivided,” n. d., (12 December 2005); Poe, Clarence, editor, True Tales of the South at War: How Soldiers Fought and Families Lived, 1861-1865, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1961) p. 8.

Veteran’s Day Reflections

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During World War II, my father (pictured on his military i. d., above at left) and three of his brothers and two brothers-in-law all served in the armed forces. All survived the war. However, the family lost both parents during war-time. My grandmother, Loula Alexander, died in February of 1943, and then my grandfather, Frank Alexander, (pictured at right above, 1945) was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in 1945.

A document filed with my father’s military records reveals a lot about the family’s situation.

The Servicemen’s Dependents Allowance Act of 1942 provided allowances for the support of the families of soldiers. Class B covered parents and siblings who were dependent on the soldier. The allowance for one parent was $15 per month, plus an additional $5 for each sibling, not exceeding $50 per month. The deduction from the soldier’s pay was $22 per month.

A Dependency Affidavit filed by Frank Alexander January 3, 1945, stated “Due to ill health I am confined to bed and unable to support myself and children.” He was age 64 and lived in Vass, N. C. His wife had died in February of 1943. The affidavit certified that he was dependent on a serviceman for more than half of his income, and asked for a Class B-1 family allowance.

Frank had two dependent children living at home, Max and Patsy Lou, who were both in school. Frank had $140 in the bank and had received $200 in “allotments” from his son, PFC Lewey Alexander, since September of the previous year. Lewey (called Tuppin by the family,) was age 20 and unmarried. Frank’s son Jack was age 30, married and serving in the Army, and son Robert, age 17 and single, was in the Merchant Marine.

At that time, Frank and his children lived in a house that he owned in the town of Vass. The house and lot were worth $1000. He had an additional 82 acres of land, also worth $1000. From the estate of his wife he had inherited $2300 worth of stock in the Carolina Power and Light Company. He was debt-free.

In 1942 and 1943, Lewey had worked on the farm, helping to raise crops during his vacation from college (Lees-McRae.) After enlistment in the U. S. Marines in 1944, he contributed $50 per month to his family’s income. Frank had become unable to work and only Lewey was able to contribute to the family income.

Additional notes:

Frank died eight months later, on August 4 of 1945. He had eight surviving children, including two older, married daughters, and a son, John Alexander, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and received a medical discharge in 1942. John was married, and his first child was born a week after the affidavit was signed.

Upon requesting my father’s military records from World War II, I learned that a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in 1973 destroyed most of them. You can request copies of documents online through the E Vet Records application, but the local V. A. helped me apply for the few records that are left from other sources.

Sources:

“Lewey Glenn Alexander Dependency Affidavit,” Jan. 3, 1945; NARA.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v6n7/v6n7p21.pdf, acceded 9 Nov. 2024; Administration of the Servicemen’s Dependents Allowance Act; https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/77th-congress/session-2/c77s2ch443.pdf, publication on Library of Congress website.

“The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center,” https://www.archives.gov/personnel-records-center/fire-1973, accessed 9 Nov. 2024.

Family Records in the possession of the author.

Illness in the 1800’s

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An ad for homeopathic medicines in The Charlotte Observer in 1876 had an extensive list of illnesses and health problems of the time. Homeopathic medications are extremely diluted plant, mineral, or animal extracts used to treat disease. The object is to produce an immune response in the body by using a very low dose of a substance that will provoke the symptoms of the illness. In 1876, homeopathic medicine had been around in Europe for nearly a hundred years. It is still used, but in the U. S. A., it has never been approved by the FDA.

“The Mild Power CURES

Humphreys’ Homeopathic Specifics:

Been in general use for twenty years.”

List of Conditions to be cured:

“1. Fevers, Congestion, and Inflammation

2. Worms, Worm Fever, Worm Colic

3. Crying Colic, or teething of Infants

4. Diarrhea of Children or adults

5. Dysentery, Griping, Bilious Colic

6. Cholera-Morbus, Vomiting

7. Coughs, Colds, Bronchitis

8. Neuralgia, Toothache, Faceache

9. Headaches, Sick Headaches, Vertigo

10. Dyspepsia, Bilious Stomach

11. Suppressed or Painful Periods

12. White, too Profuse Periods

13. Croup, Cough, Difficult Breathing

14. Salt Rheum, Erysipelas, Eruptions

15. Rheumatism, Rheumatic Pains

16. Fever and Ague, Chill Fever, Agues

17. Piles, blind or bleeding

18. Ophthalmy, and Sore or Weak Eyes

19. Catarrh, scute or chronic, Influenza

20. Whooping-Cough, violent coughs

21. Asthma, oppressed Breathing

22. Ear Discharges, impaired Hearing

23. Scrofula, enlarged glands, Swellings

24. General Debility, Physical Weakness

25. Dropsy and scanty Secretions

26. Sea-sickness, sickness from riding

27. Kidney Disease, Gravel

28. Nervous Debility, seminal weakness or involuntary discharges

29. Sore Mouth, canker

30. Urinary Weakness, wetting the bed

31. Painful Periods, with Spasms

32. Disease of Heart, palpitations, etc.

33. Epilepsy, Spasms, St. Vitus’ Dance

34. Diphtheria, ulcerated sore throat

35. Chronic Congestions and Eruptions”

Each category was treated by a separate homeopathic remedy, which could be bought singly, in small bottles, or in a leather case containing all thirty-five of them. plus a manual, sold by “all druggists” in Charlotte. This product was distributed from No. 562 Broadway, N. Y.

Source: Ad in The Charlotte Observer, 18 Aug. 1876, p. 4; accessed online through newspapers.com.

Glossary:

2. Worms: Different kinds of parasites in the digestive system or under the skin. Roundworms, including pinworms and ascariasis can cause fever.

3. Colic: The symptom of colic is unexplained crying in babies, usually with behavior that shows they are in pain. Doctors seem to think the most likely causes are teething and digestive pain, but none of them seem to really know.

5. Dysentery is bloody diarrhea, caused by bacteria. Griping is intestinal pain. Bilious colic is pain caused by gallstones blocking the bile ducts.

6. Cholera morbus is an old term for cholera, a gastrointestinal infection caused by bacteria, with the major symptom being large amounts of watery diarrhea lasting for days. There were six cholera pandemics during the 1800’s. Caused by contaminated water, better sanitation helped to bring it under control.

8. Neuralgia is a sharp, burning pain along the path of a nerve. caused by damage to the nerve. it can affect any part of the body.

9. Sick headache is accompanied by nausea and includes migraines.

10. Dyspepsia includes different kinds of indigestion. Bilious stomach was apparently what we now call acid reflux.

12. White period is a white discharge before the normal menstrual period, caused by hormonal changes. It can be normal, or be a symptom of disease or of pregnancy.

13. Croup is an infection and swelling of the upper airway, which makes it hard to breathe, and it causes a cough that sounds like barking.

14. Salt rheum was another name for eczema. Erysipelas is a bacterial skin infection that causes a firy red rash. An eruption was a rash.

15. Rheumatism is inflammation in muscles, now usually called rheumatoid arthritis. It causes chronic pain and soreness.

16. Ague was malaria or some other illness causing fever and shivering.

17. Piles are hemorrhoids.

18. Ophthalmy was inflammation of the eyes.

19. Catarrh is excessive mucus in the nose or throat, now usually called postnasal drip.

20. Whooping cough is a very contagious respiratory infection that causes severe coughing.

23. Scrofula is an infection in the lymph nodes of the neck by the same bacteria as tuberculosis.

25. Dropsy is edema, or fluid retention in body tissues.

27. Gravel is kidney stones.

33. St. Vitus’ Dance is an auto-immune disease which can be a side effect of rheumatic fever. It causes uncontrolable jerking movements in the the face, hands and feet.

34. Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that causes fever and severe sore throat. It used to cause the death of many children. Most people in the U. S. Are now vaccinated against diphtheria and whooping cough.

[Defined with help from Mayo Clinic, NIH, and Wikipedia, among others.]

A Slice of Life: 1876

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On Friday, August 18, 1876, page four of the Charlotte Observer reported that “The house of Mr. Smith Alexander, in Sharon Township, was entered last Tuesday while the family were absent attending a picnic, and robbed of clothing, meat, flour and everything that could be conveniently carried away.”

Mr. (John) Smith Alexander was 50 years old, and had been married for almost three years to Maggie Stilwell, age 29. They had lost their first child, Julia, the previous year, and in less than two months, Maggie would give birth to their second child, Oscar.

Other articles on the same page of the newspaper give some clues as to what life was like in 1876, as well as what type of picnic they might have been attending. A picnic promoting Temperance, or abstinence from drinking alcohol, was advertised. Temperance was a hot topic in the 1800’s, especially with women whose husbands overindulged and wasted the family’s livelihood and sometimes, became violent when under the influence.

Pills to remedy drinking too much were advertised, as well as a remedy for Dyspepsia, which apparently included all gastrointestinal complaints. Many ads for patent medicines listed the common illnesses of the time, including tuberculosis, whooping cough, and dysentery.

Several other articles were about picnics and rallies for the political candidates of the period. Zebulon Vance was running for State Governor, again, after serving during the Civil War and spending some time after the war under arrest. The lyrics for a campaign song for Vance were printed on the page, so it would seem that the Observer promoted his candidacy. The Sharon and Steel Creek communities were both mentioned as sites of political rallies.

The articles included many racist remarks. The Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War lasted until about 1876. The Democratic Party was the more conservative of the two main political parties. The Republican party had been the party of President Lincoln. One article remarked that the Republicans called the newspaper Democratic.

The hard times that followed the war were mentioned. Financial news and grocery ads indicated that bacon, corn, lard, flour, chickens, eggs, butter, honey, and sugar were important items in the diet of the times, and some foods, such as chickens, eggs, and butter, were scarce. Also mentioned were prices for cheese, rice, meal, grits, molasses, coffee, tea, fish, oats, peas, fruits, and potatoes, as well as wines and liquors.

Ads in the “Ten cent column” cost ten cents per line, minimum twenty-five cents, and included ads for Miss Mary Watson’s school, a gold mine for sale in Huntersville, food, medicine, employment, hotels, and Mason jars.

The robbers were arrested and charged, but the article didn’t mention whether any of the stolen goods were recovered. It seems significant that food was prominent in the list of things taken. For many citizens of North Carolina, the period after the war was a hungry time.

Smith and Maggie would eventually have a total of five children, one of whom was my grandfather, William Franklin Alexander, who was born in 1880. When their children were teenagers, the couple moved to a home on the Deep River in Moore County, N. C., where Smith passed away in 1904, and Maggie, later in 1931.

Sources: The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina, Friday, August 18, 1876, p. 4, accessed online; “Zebulon Vance,” https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/zebulon-b-vance-birthplace/history/zebulon-vance, accessed 16 Sept. 2024.

A Millwright in the Family

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John Finlayson McDonald’s grave stone establishes his birthdate as July 31, 1817. His parents were Angus McDonald and Mary Finlayson of Cumberland County, N. C.

Both Gaelic and English were spoken in the home when John was young, and the members of his family were literate. The census tells us he became a millwright. Millwrights were the engineers of their time, needing skills for working with metal, stone, and wood, and having the knowledge and ability to create the moving parts of the mill. The work required mathematical and engineering knowledge, evidence he had some formal education.

In 1838, when John was age 21, he acquired a farm located between Carthage and Vass. He had 65 acres of land located on both sides of the Lower Little River in Cumberland County, and 100 acres adjoining the Moore County line and his father’s property lines on the river.

In 1848, John F. McDonald bought from Daniel McLeod for $850, 496 acres between Herd and Crain’s Creeks, with enough “land on the North side of Herds Creek as would be necessary for the use of a Mill and overflowing of a pond.” In Branson’s N.C. Business Directories, his name can be found in a list of “Prominent Farmers,” with 500 acres on Crains Creek.

John’s father died before the 1850 census. At that time, his mother lived in the Western Division of Cumberland County on $300 worth of real estate; his three sisters lived with their mother. A millwright named John McDonald, in the neighborhood of 33 years old, lived in the household of a widow with eight children, whose name was Edith Page.

Calculating by age of his oldest son, Angus, John Finlayson McDonald was married to Sarah Strickland around 1857. She was 22 to her husband’s 40 years of age. They had a second son, Malcom Daniel, in 1859, and unfortunately, Sarah died in childbirth. Their infant son was raised by John’s sisters, Sarah, Margaret, and Christian. Angus, their older child, can be found in census records with his father. The family belonged to Cypress Presbyterian Church in Harnett County. John’s mother, Mary Finlayson McDonald, also died sometime between 1850-1860.

John was about 45 years old in 1862, when enlistment for the Confederate Army started. It is likely that he was the John McDonald of Company H of the 6th Regiment, N. C. Senior Reserves, who served in the Civil War until its end in 1865.

About 1866, John married again. Jennet Isabella Patterson was born around 1848 in Cumberland County, and married John, a 49-year-old widower, at about age 18. The Patterson family belonged to Union Presbyterian Church, located between Carthage and Vass, where John became a member.

Their first child, Mary Arabella McDonald, was born in 1867. Their son, Neill Archibald McDonald, was born in 1869. In 1870, their home was in the Greenwood Township of Moore County. John was a millwright whose real estate at that time was valued at $800. Son Angus was age 12 and attended school. The family had neighbors who were farmers, (two who were born in Scotland,) with surnames McDonald, McLean, and Kelly.

Daughter Margaret Anne was born in 1872. Jennet’s father, Neill Patterson, died in 1877.

In 1880, the family, still in Greenwood, included the parents and four children. John was still a millwright, Angus worked as a house carpenter, and Neill was a laborer. John’s son Malcom lived with John’s sister, Christian McDonald, in Cumberland County.

In 1891, Jennet’s mother, Margaret McLean Patterson, died and was buried beside her husband at Union Presbyterian Church.

In 1899, John Finlayson McDonald died and was buried in the Ferguson and McDonald family cemetery near Crain’s Creek. His monument reads: “John F. McDonald; Born July 31–1817. Died February 20–1899. At Rest.” There is a grave to his right marked at head and foot by round field stones, which is the likely resting place of Jennet, who died soon after, in 1901. Their daughter Margaret Ann Hicks and three of her children, as well as their grand-daughter, were later buried in adjacent graves.

Sources:

Alex M. Patterson, Highland Scots Pattersons of North Carolina and Related Families. (Raleigh: Contemporary Lithographers, Inc., 1979), pp. 159-194. Patterson researched the family of John’s second wife, Jennet Isabella Patterson.

1820 U. S. Census; Moore County, N. C., page stamped 298/handwritten 301; NARA Microfilm M33_80.

James Vann Comer, Gone and Almost Forgotten: Crain’s Creek Community, (Sanford: James Vann Comer, 1986), p. 104; census records below.

Son Neill McDonald in 1940 U. S. Census, High Point, Guilford County, N. C., NARA Roll: M-T0627-02921; p. 6B; Enumeration District: 41-90.

1850 U. S. Census, Eastern Division, Cumberland, North Carolina; Roll: 627; Page: 64b; Line Number: 40, Dwelling Number: 1045, Family Number: 1058.

1860 U. S. Census, Moore County, N. C., p. 79; NARA Microfilm M653-906.

Confederate North Carolina Troops: 6th Regiment, North Carolina Senior Reserves, accessed Feb. 1, 2012 at http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/regiments.cfm, no date; Weymouth T. Jordan Jr., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865 : a Roster, Vol. 12, (Raleigh, N.C. : State Dept. of Archives and History, 2004) p. 68.

1870 United States Federal Census, Greenwood Township, Moore County, N. C., p. 34; NARA Microfilm M593-1149.

1880 U. S. Census, Greenwood Township, Moore County, N. C., Enumeration District 133, p. 4D.; NARA Microfilm Roll 973, accessed online at ancestry.com

Visit to cemetery located off County Road 1825, approx. .4 mile from Highway 1, just North of Crains Creek, Moore County, with Lewey Alexander Sr., great-grandson, and William Wilson, great-great grandson, on March 29, 2002. See Findagrave Cemetery ID: 2282051.

LOULA RICHARDSON ALEXANDER: CHICKEN FARMER, MARKET VENDOR, 1930-1943

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In the autumn of 1929, the crash of the American stock market started a period that we now call the Great Depression, which lasted for about a decade and challenged the survival of ordinary Americans.

My parents told many stories about growing up during that time. In my Dad’s family, many of those stories expressed admiration for his mother, Loula Richardson Alexander, and her ceaseless hard work, determination, and inventiveness.

In 1930 Frank and Loula Alexander moved their family of nine children, including one new-born, from a house in the town of Vass, N. C., to a farm nearby, on Union Church Road. Loula went into action. She ordered baby chicks that were delivered by mail in a box with air holes, a hundred at a time. She put paper, sand and boards in a corner of the living room to make a warm home for the chicks while Frank built a brooder house. Eventually she would have five buildings for the purpose of raising chickens, about 500 birds at the peak of her business.

Sometime prior to 1933, the Moore County Home Demonstration Clubs started a farmer’s market in Southern Pines to sell produce to Northern women who had winter homes in Southern Pines and Pinehurst. The market was in a basement, on a side street near the depot in Southern Pines, “on the Pinehurst side.” It was an open room with stepped shelves for merchandise. Each of twenty female vendors had a booth. Loula sold butter, eggs, baked goods, and vegetables. She had a flower garden and sold cut flowers. She also sold canned peaches from the family’s orchard of about 40 peach trees, two varieties.

A curb market commitee established rules about the cleanliness and quality of the produce, and set the prices. Sellers were required to sell at the same prices as local merchants, their one advantage being that they were not required to add sales tax.

The income helped rural women with living expenses, as well as children’s clothing, college tuition, and better health care. One of Loula’s most cherished goals was to send her oldest daughter, Willie, to Duke University.

Total sales for the vendors from Dec. 1, 1932-Nov. 1, 1933 were $3,093.28, worth about $65,833.03 in 2022. If Loula had received an equal 1/20 share of that, $154.66, she received, in 2022 numbers, the equivalent of about $3,277.00 for 12 months’ work. Hopefully, her extra hard work netted her more than that, but even in 1933, the compensation must have seemed a little thin.

Nevertheless, an anonymous woman wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, on the subject of the budget for a county home demonstration agent. She said:

“The curb market alone has brought over three thousand dollars into the Moore county farm homes. It seems to me that we need this kind of work as never before.”

Sellers continued to grow produce into fall and winter to sell at the market. They were motivated to improve their farming practices so as to compete with other sellers. An article about the market in the local newspaper mentioned that “Fresh eggs are at a premium…”

First Loula sold eggs at the market, then she discovered she could sell fryers. When the chickens were 8-12 weeks old, they became frying size, about two to two and a half pounds. At that point, she could identify the sex. The boxes of baby chicks contained about an equal number of males and females. If the pullets (young hens) were good layers she kept them to produce eggs, while other hens became fryers. She would sell 3-4 dozen hens per week at the curb market. She learned to caponize young roosters from the Moore County Agricultural Extension agent, and she sold the capons for baking. They would grow larger than the hens, and she sold a lot of them for Thanksgiving dinners.

Dr. Earl Wayne Hunter, a dentist from south Sanford, near Highway One, owned Dr. Hunter’s Hatchery, another market for Loula, as he bought fertilized eggs. She could tell with a candle if an egg contained a chicken embryo.

Loula’s children were very much involved in her business. Several of them described coming home from school on Friday afternoon and immediately joining their mother in preparing chickens for the market. Loula did the slaughtering herself, and the children helped to remove feathers, etc. Their mother would set out alone very early on Saturday morning with her merchandise and come home later with treats they couldn’t produce on the farm, like Jello.

In spite of Loula’s diligence and obvious contribution to the family income, the 1940 census taker described her occupation, just like many wives of the time, with a blank line and checked that she was “engaged in home housework,” and further indicated that she earned no income. Incredible.

When Loula passed away, age 51, in 1943, World War II was in force. She had two married daughters, two sons in the Army, one son in college—soon to be in the Marine Corps, and three younger children living at home. Sadly, she had lost one son to illness in 1935. Her husband, Frank Alexander, was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away only a year and a half later.

Sources:

Interviews with Lewey Alexander Sr., Robert L. Alexander, Patsy Alexander Rodgers, and Willie Alexander Carr.

1940 U. S. Census, McNeill’s Township, Moore County, N. C., E. D. 69-13, p. 11A; West Sanford, Lee County, N. C. ED 53-7, sheet 7B.

The Pilot, newspaper, Vass, Aberdeen, & Southern Pines: Friday, Mar. 28, 1930, p. 9; 29 April, 1932, p. 2.; Nov. 17, 1933, Edition 1, pp. 4-5; December 29, 1939, p. 4.

USD Inflation, https://www.usdinflation.com/amount/154/1933, accessed 20 Feb. 2022.

A Mill Family’s Losses in 1918

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Boy workers in a N. C. cotton mill. The white specks on their clothing are cotton lint.

I wrote earlier, in “Victim of a Pandemic,” about a World War I soldier who lost his life to the influenza pandemic of 1918. His mother, Margaret McDonald Hicks, had a brother, Neill Archibald McDonald, who lost three children and a daughter-in-law to that pandemic.

Margaret and Neill grew up in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. Their grandfather, Angus McDonald, came from the Western Isles of Scotland to North Carolina near the end of the 1700’s. He came to this country speaking Scots Gaelic, the language his family continued to use at home through his grandchildren’s generation. Neill and his siblings spoke fluent Gaelic, and the language died out with their generation in the first half of the twentieth century.

As a young man, Neill left his home in the Sandhills and traveled to New Orleans, where, in 1897, he met and married Marie Gottschalk, whose family came from Germany. Neill and Marie moved back to his home in Moore County, N. C., and around 1912, they moved on to High Point, N. C., a growing mill town. There, Neill found work at the brand new Highland Cotton Mills and a home in the mill village.

Neill worked at Highland until his retirement in the 1930’s. Marie gave birth to at least thirteen children, one of whom died as an infant. The other twelve children were all Highland Cotton Mill employees, as were their spouses and children.

Early cotton mills are notorious for having employed children, for very low wages. The census of 1920 and 1930 reports children in the family as young as age 15 working in the mill. However, the children probably went to work at much earlier ages.

During the pandemic of 1918, three of Neill and Marie’s children died of influenza. The youngest was Wilbert, age 9, described on his death certificate as a mill worker, as were his brothers John, age 16, and Frederick, 18. Annie McDonald, the 20-year-old wife of their oldest brother, Ughie, was taken by the virus as well. She, too, was a HIghland Cotton Mill employee.

Those four family members, as well as several others, were buried at the Springfield Friends Meeting, near the village. No stones marked their graves, but the Friends kept careful records of the burials in their cemetery.

Sources:

U. S. Federal Census reports for 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940, including Supplemental Questions, 1940.

Miller, Ernest H., High Point, N.C. City Directory, 1923-1924, (Piedmont Directory Co., 1923.) accessed online at https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/25291?ln=en, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill; p. 236.

Hills High Point City Directory, 1938, 1939, 1949 (Richmond, Va.: Hill Publishing Co.) accessed online at Ancestry.com.

Louisiana Marriages, 1718-1925, database on-line at Ancestry.com. Original marriage records from the Clerk of the Court, St. Tammany Parrish, La.

North Carolina Death Certificates, database online at Ancestry.com, original records from North Carolina State Archives; Raleigh, N. C.

Brenda G. Haworth, Ed., Springfield Friends Cemetery: 1780-2017, Guilford County, High Point, N. C., (2017: Springfield Memorial Association, High Point, N. C.) p. 141.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987)

Lewis Wickes Hine, photograph of boy workers in a cotton mill, 1908, digital image, Library of Congress.

Victim of a Pandemic

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Grave stone of Neill Abner Curtis Hicks, 1897-1918

There is an old Scottish cemetery in the Sandhills of North Carolina, where the oldest grave is dated 1796. Many people buried there were from the Western Isles of Scotland, including Jura and Skye. They spoke Gaelic. Most of the graves have the names Ferguson and McDonald on them. The last monument was a tribute to a soldier who fell in World War I, not from an enemy bullet, but from a virus, during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

My aunt, Willie Alexander Carr, told me of walking to the cemetery with her mother, Loula Richardson Alexander, when Willie was seven years old. They went down a lane and through the woods near the Alexanders’ farm, balancing on a log to cross the creek. They were visiting the grave of Loula’s first cousin, Curtis Hicks.

The Hicks family lived in the township of Greenwood, in Moore County, North Carolina. Abner Hicks and Margaret McDonald married in 1890, and by 1902, they had five children. Then they lost their sixth child as an infant, and two years later, after the birth of twins, Margaret died. Her babies, a boy and a girl, died soon after. Their graves were all placed beside Margaret’s parents in the old cemetery.

In 1911, Abner remarried, to Flora Ann Yow, a neighbor. My father remembered her as “Aunt Flora Ann,” beloved by the family for her kindness to her step-children.

The fourth child of Abner and Margaret, Curtis, was twenty-one when young men were drafted for the Great War. His draft card described him as dark haired and blue eyed. He worked for a local farmer, Angus Cameron, who owned a saw mill. Curtis registered in June of 1918 and left his home for Fort Jackson in August.

Curtis was assigned to Camp Sevier, built in 1917 near Greenville, S. C., to train soldiers for the war. By the Armistice in November 1918, 80,000 soldiers had passed through the large camp. In September of 1918, the first influenza case appeared in the camp hospital, and it opened a floodgate.

The epidemic developed so rapidly that facilities and staff were expanded and taxed to the limit. When the hospital filled up, the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. buildings, the schoolhouse, a theater, mess halls, and tents became hospital wards. Medical officers were joined by civilian, professional, and practical nurses in tending to a total of 6,000 patients.

Personnel used many precautions, isolating patients with hanging sheets and screens. Doctors, nurses, and attendants wore masks and gowns. Patients with pneumonia were placed in separate wards. Disposable cups and plates were used and burned afterward.

Curtis Hicks was one of the unfortunate soldiers who developed pneumonia, which caused his lungs to hemorrhage and quickly caused his death. Three hundred and forty soldiers died, a death rate over 5% in the camp. He died on October 4, only a few months after his induction into the Army. By November 11, the epidemic, as well as the war, was effectively over.

Curtis was buried near his mother and his grandfather, John Finlayson McDonald. Willie and Loula visited the grave when fresh soil was still mounded over it. Woods now cover the acre of old family graves, and real estate development has slowly surrounded it.

Sources:

Willie D. Richardson, cousin of Curtis Hicks, WWI

1900 U. S. Census, McNeill’s Tshp., Moore County, N. C., p. 169; NARA Microfilm T623-1207; 1910 U. S. Census, McNeill’s Tshp., Moore County, N. C., p. 193; NARA Microfilm T624-1119; 1920 U. S. Census, Vass, Moore County, N. C., E. D. 92, p. 21B; NARA Microfilm T625-1300; accessed on Ancestry.com.

North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741-2011 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: North Carolina County Registers of Deeds. Microfilm. Record Group 048. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.;

South Carolina Death Records, 1821-1955 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: South Carolina. South Carolina death records. Columbia, SC, USA: South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

Influenza Outbreak of 1918-1919, by Steve Case, revised by Lisa Gregory, 2010, NC Government and Heritage Library, NCPedia.com. Accessed 7 March 2020.

U.S., Lists of Men Ordered to Report to Local Board for Military Duty, 1917–1918 [database on-line]. Original data: War Department, Office of the Provost Marshal General, Selective Service System, 1917– 07/15/1919. National Archives at College Park. College Park, Maryland.

Office of Medical History: Office of the Surgeon General, “Extracts from Reports Relative to Influenza, Pneumonia, and Respiratory Diseases,” April 4, 2003, http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/1918flu/ARSG1919/ARSG1919Extractsflu.htm#U1. (continued)%20CAMP%20SEVIER%20BASE%20HOSPITAL%20REPORT, accessed March 9, 2020.

Grave monument in McDonald-Ferguson family cemetery, off County Road 1825, approx. .4 mile from Highway 1, just north of Crains Creek, Moore County. Visit to cemetery and photographs taken March 29, 2002.

Interviews with Willie Alexander Carr and Lewey G. Alexander, Sr., by the author, April 1, 2002.

Tuberculosis

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September 25th, this week, was “World Lung Day.”The World Health Organization, concerned about a world-wide epidemic of tuberculosis, got a hearing this week at the United Nations to ask for funding to fight the leading infectious killer of human beings in the world today.

The United States gained control over the disease during the mid-20th century, after the introduction of antibiotics and x-rays. I remember the mobile x-ray unit that used to visit the county seat at least once a year. My mother and other people with family members who had the disease were required to get a yearly x-ray so that the illness could be promptly diagnosed and treated. My brothers and I would wait in the car on the courthouse square while she stood in line.

Apparently this was a common experience all across the U. S. The American Lung Association raised money from the sale of Christmas and Easter Seals, stamp-like stickers you could put on your cards and letters, advertising the organization’s efforts against “lung diseases, air pollution and smoking.”

My mother’s half-sister, Reba Oakley, and Reba’s mother and grandfather, from Surry County, N. C., all died of tuberculosis. In 1912, when Reba was born, T. B. was causing more deaths than heart disease or cancer, and The American Lung Association was less than a decade old. Reba’s mother died of the disease only 3 years later.

Reba’s grandfather, William Tyson Snow, had already died in 1906, of “consumption,” as it was called then. The family apparently believed that the infection was latent in Reba’s lungs for decades. She became ill as an adult and was treated at a state sanitarium for several years, before succumbing to the debilitating effects of T. B. at age 34.

A latent infection from T. B. is now said to be very rare. It is possible that Reba was infected as an adult. However, because of her infection, her family were all required to be x-rayed yearly for several years. Fortunately, they all remained healthy.

Poverty contributes to the prevalence of the disease in Africa and Asia today. However, it’s easy to forget that only a century ago, many of our own citizens were working on subsistence farms and spending long days in textile and other factories, where their exposure to lint and other air pollutants made them sick. As unemployment and homelessness grow in our population, so do diseases we often consider misfortunes of the past.

More about Reba Oakley and family:

http://home.earthlink.net/~glendaalex/reba.htm

Sources consulted online:

http://www.lung.org

Esther Johnson of the Surry County Genealogical Association commented, concerning the Mt. Airy Granite Quarry: “That was one of the things that happened to people who worked in our Quarry here in Mt. Airy. Everyone at school had to take a test for TB.”

8 N. C. Families

N. C. Family History

Category Archives: Alexander

Stories from the Smith and Maggie Alexander Family: The Brothers Enlist

Stories from the Smith and Maggie Alexander Family: Smith Alexander in the Civil War

Veteran’s Day Reflections

Illness in the 1800’s

A Slice of Life: 1876

A Millwright in the Family

LOULA RICHARDSON ALEXANDER: CHICKEN FARMER, MARKET VENDOR, 1930-1943

A Mill Family’s Losses in 1918

Victim of a Pandemic

Tuberculosis