My Knowledge and My Memories of My Family

By James Daughtridge

This book is about what I remember about many members of my family and about the knowledge I obtained about them through various interviews and written sources, e.g., obituaries, newspapers, and articles I found on the Internet. The book follows a certain order. I describe what I remember about my immediate family members. I start off with my father then my mother and then my brotherthe only sibling I ever had. I then discuss my life with my ex-wife and her family and then the only child we ever had.

I go on to another chapter, or maybe the third chapter, and talk about my paternal grandfathers family and as much of what I could remember about my maternal grandmothers family. I know and discovered more about the former than the latter. I enhanced my discussion throughout the book with as many pictures as I could gather. The book has pictures anywhere from one to about eighty years old. This, I thought, would make the book more interesting and lively. The book is replete with explanatory footnotes for those of certain generations or knowledge who may not understand or know of certain places, celebrities, cultural practices, and events. The entire book was prepared to relate to all who might read it in terms of family connections, their interest(s) in travel, history, sports, genealogy, and biography.

I then talk about my maternal grandmothers family. It is relatively short because I did not know too many of them that well. The book covers mostly what I know and found out about my maternal grandfathers family. That is because it is the largest segment of my entire family. My father had no siblings, whereas my mother had about ten or eleven siblings, and all of them had children and grandchildren. I discovered a great deal more accomplishments in life on my mothers side as opposed to my fathers side of the family.

I do not think the book is boring or particularly too long or too short. The book is a description of the life of the people whom I discuss and how I might have fitted into those lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503583528

James Daughtridge

James Daughtridge was born on March 7, 1950, at Memorial Hospital in Edgecombe County in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He graduated from O. R. Pope Elementary School in Rocky Mount in 1962. From there, he attended J. W. Parker Junior High School from 1962 to 1965. He graduated from the Booker T. Washington Senior High School there in 1968. While at Booker T., he received a second place award in a Time magazine current events contest. He received a partial academic scholarship when he attended Johnson C. Smith University, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. From there, he graduated cum laude and was ranked twelfth in his class of 228 graduates. He played tennis while in college and participated in a number of extracurricular activities. While at Smith, he served as treasurer, vice president, and president of the Student Government Association. He was selected to Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges during his sophomore, junior, and senior years. While at Smith, he was offered to have his total college cost supplemented through a tennis scholarship, but he declined. In later life, he attended and received a master of arts degree from Cleveland State University in 1979. He studied for a doctoral degree in history at Howard University in Washington, DC, from 1979 to 1982. He has been an adjunct professor at seven colleges, and he has taught in eight different areas of history (e.g., American history to and from the Civil War, African-American history to and from the Civil War, modern Western civilization, modern world history, twentieth-century world history, and twentieth-century American history). For several years, he has been a docent, or museum tour guide, with the Smithsonian Institution, located in Washington, DC. In life, he has held numerous jobs, but he has attained his greatest satisfaction as the employment discrimination complaints appeals manager for the US Department of Agriculture, which is the position in which he currently serves. He has travelled to three continents, and he has visited twenty-six states. His ambition in life is to have travelled to all fifty states. He has several hobbies and interests—which include vegetable gardening, hand dancing, tennis, travelling, billiards, photography, bowling, and reading.

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Copyright © 2015 by James Daughtridge.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2015910730

ISBN:         Hardcover         978-1-5035-8350-4

         Softcover         978-1-5035-8351-1

         eBook         978-1-5035-8352-8

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Rev. date: 07/23/2015

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue:

Chapter 1: My Birth Family

Chapter 2: My Marriage Family

Chapter 3: My Paternal Grandfather’s Family

Chapter 4: My Maternal Great-Grandfather’s Family And My Maternal Grandmother’s Family

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are family members whom I wish to acknowledge in support of my preparation for this manuscript. First of all, I give glory to God for enabling me to have the courage to pursue this project. Also, I thank him for giving me the mental energy and physical endurance for this undertaking. He has also allowed me to live long enough to have met and encountered many wonderful people in this life.

I was inspired with this whole project through the book written by my late great-uncle Henry Ramsey. He entitled his book My Genealogy. One of the few times that I saw him in my life was at the 2012 family reunion in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He brought, sold, and autographed his book for various family members. I was quite intrigued with his work. It was not too much longer after that I began preparations for this manuscript. That was in August 2012. The family reunion occurred a month before.

I give thanks to my ex-wife, Gail, for the bits and pieces of information she provided me regarding her family members. This was on her stepfather, mother, sister, grandmother, uncle, brother-in-law, and nephews. She graciously consented to periodic interviews.

The academic and athletic accomplishments of my son greatly inspired me to pursue a manuscript about my family history. Much of the joy and entertainment that I have had in life came from his successes and accomplishments in athletic competition. I have also enjoyed seeing him graduate from child care center, primary school, secondary school, and college where he has most recently received a master’s of science degree from a prominent university.

I wish to acknowledge Gloria Jean Evans-Farmer for her enthusiastic support in this project. She spent much time with me in giving information about my paternal grandfather’s side of the family. She shared many family pictures with me and reminded me of things about the family I never knew or thought about.

My thanks also go to my maternal first cousin Monica and her husband, Gregory. Monica shared with me the story of how she discovered her biological father, who is my mother’s brother. She was patient enough in giving me a step-by-step analysis as to how she discovered her biological father. Her husband, Gregory, told me about a grandfather of his who was linked to the training and caring of a famous racehorse. The information that he gave me led me on to a small research project. Their son Gregory informed me as to how he had gotten into the horse business. Thanks to all three of them, as well as to Jhavid for what he provided.

I want to acknowledge the contributions of Geraldine Jones, who is from own my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. She presented me with photographs that I had never seen or thought even existed. She also confirmed or verified stories that I had heard about her parents and siblings.

Lorna Jean Hines deserves a great deal of thanks for the endless amount of information she provided me on herself and her accomplishments. Through her, I saw what the familial connections were on my mother’s side of the family. She provided me with the telephone numbers of certain people, which I never would have had. I am deeply indebted for the services she provided.

I cannot go without saying that Uncle Charles Bernard July offered me great encouragement. He provided me some useful (what I call inside) information about the family, of which I had no prior knowledge. He also encouraged some family members to cooperate with me on this family project. His children—my first cousins Cedric, Charla, Redonia, and Melany—all took the time and provided information that I needed to try to make my manuscript a complete piece of work. Aunt Jeannette contributed information about herself.

My cousin Monica Michelle, out of New York City, was very helpful with respect to the information that she provided me about her herself, her mother and father, and about other family members. She provided some key telephone numbers of various family members. Monica Michelle also provided a few pictures, which I used in my work. She also attempted to reach a family member whom I had no success in reaching.

My son, Omari, provided some key documents that I otherwise would not have been able to obtain. Many thanks to him.

Richard Farmer, my paternal third cousin through marriage to Gloria Jean Evans-Farmer, shed light on his family story and what he remembered about his having lived in Baltimore, Maryland. I found it interesting, what he contributed, as I did with other providers of information.

My cousin Brenda Evans’s children helped in providing information about themselves, their husbands, as well as their children. They are Leslie and Tracy. I owe many thanks to them as well as to other providers of information.

Thanks also to my cousin Walter Jerome as well as his wife, Valerie, and their daughter. Jerome (as I called him) told me a lot of interesting information about his career in the military as well as in law enforcement. He also gave me interesting information about his work in security. His wife, Valerie, kindly allowed me an interview where we traced her career in law as well as in the military.

I thank Genevieve Lancaster who gave me information about herself, her mother, her sister, and many of their descendants.

There were the Korokous sisters, who are descendants of my maternal great-aunt. They provided good information about their careers and accomplishments in life. They gave information about their father and uncle. Their mother, Landa, was very helpful too.

Odell Maxwell was very much a great contributor of information about my maternal great-grandfather’s sister. Without her, there would have been little (if any) information to discuss about that side of the family. Through pictures that I took during the 2013 family reunion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, she pointed out second-, third-, fourth-, and even fifth-generation descendants of my maternal great-grandfather’s sister. It was just wonderful hearing her tell me about her grandmother, her mother and father, and her siblings and their offspring.

I owe Elizabeth July thanks for connecting pieces together on the July side of the family, particularly as it pertains to her and her father and some uncles. Elizabeth provided information so key that it led me to probe deeper and deeper into the July family history.

PROLOGUE

Why did I write this book? The answer is that I think it is important that every person should have knowledge of his or her family for several reasons. One is to shed knowledge to various family members about things they did not know about each other. Hopefully, that would possibly draw the family together. Secondly, everyone’s family history should be preserved for future generations. I think that it is so important for future generations to look back at the past for determining who was what and why. The family is an integral part of a person’s life. Every person is a part of a family, whether it is very large or very small. I have tried to say the best I can about each and every person about whom I have written. I have tried to avoid all gossip and slander. I imagine and do accept the fact that readers will have varying degrees of interest in this manuscript. Hopefully, some will find humor in some parts of this manuscript. And hopefully, some will acquire a great deal of knowledge about topics, events, and items about which I have written.

To avoid a bland presentation, I have tried to provide many pictures. I tried to get pictures of the best quality. They vary in quality and size. The pictures were either given to me, ones that I took myself, or ones that I took from family photo albums. Many of the photographs in this manuscript are either ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or over sixty years old.

In addition to the presentation of photographs, I have provided footnotes to be as clear as possible about the topics or events as they relate to the persons I have discussed. I realize that some persons might not be as knowledgeable as others with respect to the events, places, or topics discussed. Conveyance of knowledge about a family member was so important to me that I wanted to enhance that knowledge with things that maybe only I knew about that person.

I began this book project in August 2012. I was greatly inspired to do this after having seen and after having been presented with an autobiography of a late great-uncle. I used a different approach in my work. I did not concentrate on birth and death dates. I just went straight to the knowledge that I could obtain about the person. Sometimes, I spent several hours writing; and sometimes I just spent minutes. Most times, it was hours. I wrote as much and as often as I could. I spent most of my time writing either in my patio, downstairs basement, the kitchen table, or on the bed in my bedroom.

I hope that this manuscript will serve as a reminder of me. I also hope that it will inspire other family members to either write something on themselves or about some other family member for possible publication. I dedicate this book to all family members who have been very much a part of my life and those with whom I might have had varying degrees of encounter.

I realize that this manuscript is not perfect. I wonder—if I had known some distant family members better, this manuscript might have been better. I owe whatever writing skills I might have demonstrated in this work to my high school English teacher, Ms. Naomi Brown; my college English teacher, Ms. Hazel Amos; and to the others with whom I have worked over the years at different places where I had to write. Much of the manuscript was based on extensive interviews, obituaries provided me by various family members, my memory, and written articles.

I dedicate this manuscript most of all to my father, mother, and brother. I also dedicate this to my former wife and to my son. I dedicate this manuscript to all those who took their precious time in giving me interviews and leading me on to others who had useful information. I dedicate this work to all those who have gone on in life, as well as to those who are still living.

May God bless us all!

CHAPTER 1

MY BIRTH FAMILY

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Picture of me at 6 months

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Grandma Redoria July, holding me in her arms in 1950

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(me) James Daughtridge, Jr in 1951 or 1952

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james Daughtridge in 1952

I am James E. Daughtridge, and I was born on March 7, 1950, at Edgecombe Memorial Hospital in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I am not a true believer in the phenomenon, but my astrological sign is Piscean. My parents are James Edward Daughtridge and Eunice Mae July Daughtridge.¹ My father was the only known child of William and Sarah Daughtridge. I do not know from whom his father, my paternal grandfather, received the name Daughtridge. My dad would be one hundred years old on February 22, 2013. Strangely enough, he was born sixteen days before black abolitionist Harriet Tubman died.² He died on April 23, 1978, of prostate cancer, from which he had suffered for four painful, agonizing years. His mother (my paternal grandmother) died on the same date, but in 1955. She died in Goldsboro, North Carolina, supposedly from complications due to diabetes.³ My mother took the home going, or funeral, quite hard, weeping and shouting, Mama! Mama!

I do not know what city or state my father was born in. I remember Dad having told me that he was one year short of graduation from high school. During that time, according to him, grade school, unlike now, only went to the eleventh grade.

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