Royal

By Susan and Terry Wadsworth

Like a time-capsule buried long ago our Father’s story was dug up when we stumbled over family secrets hidden beneath the surface.
With a strong desire to preserve Family history me and my sister set out to put his story on paper for future generations.
Spanning five decades Royal’s story will take you on a historical journey through times long forgotten. Revisiting the people and places that
shaped his life helped us know him in a way we never had before. Royal is a story of discovering who you are in light of where you’ve been and is meant to
inspire, motivate and encourage you to discover what lies beneath the surface of your own Family Tree?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663232014

Susan and Terry Wadsworth

Susan and Teresa are first time Authors and co-authored “Royal,” together. Employed in several different professions throughout the years both agree raising their families have been their greatest accomplishment and their greatest source of joy. Their hope is to instill in the generations to come a strong sense of Family. “Writing this book together has been an absolute labor of love.” -Susan and Teresa “In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, a bridge to our future.” -Alex Haley

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Copyright © 2021 Susan and Terry Wadsworth.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-3200-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3201-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021923501

iUniverse rev. date: 11/29/2021

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Pond

Chapter 2 A Point in Time

Chapter 3 Keys to Life

Chapter 4 Beyond the Borders

Chapter 5 Trapped

Chapter 6 Choices

Chapter 7 Quit Cryin’, Quit Dyin’

Chapter 8 The Escape Plan

Chapter 9 Hard Goodbyes

Chapter 10 No More Looking Back

Chapter 11 New Beginnings

Chapter 12 Dark Roots

Chapter 13 Finding Love

Chapter 14 Uncle Sam Wants You

Chapter 15 The Journey Home

Chapter 16 Headlines

Chapter 17 The Reunion

Chapter 18 Discovering Who I Am

Chapter 19 Life’s Lessons

Epilogue

About the Authors

Lovingly

dedicated to our amazing parents, Roy and Dolores

Wadsworth. Thank you for rising above your own circumstances to

create a wonderful home for your four daughters. It’s been a sweet ride.

~Susan & Terry~

Prologue

People will not look forward to posterity who

never look back at their ancestors.

—Edmund Burke

It was the fall of 1993. The cool autumn air was no match for the warmth we felt inside the car as it sped along the interstate en route to St. Louis International Airport. We chatted with excitement, and the volume of laughter rose as each childhood memory was tossed around like an old, worn-out rag doll. It was apparent we valued our time together and that we shared a bond common only among sisters.

We boarded the aircraft with great anticipation of what this weekend venture might bring. The plane taxied into position, paused, and waited for permission to take off. After a brief hesitation, we raced forward down the runway, gracefully ascending into a ballroom of waltzing clouds.

Though both of us were thirtysomething, we reached for each other’s hand and clung tightly, like we did as children when we rode the roller coaster.

When the plane leveled out, we loosened our grip and broke the silence. I’m really curious to know why Dad changed his name when he was young.

I know.

Mom never said anything.

I guess she didn’t want us to know.

I watched out the window as we sailed through the sea of blue sky, and then, closing my eyes, I settled back in my seat when, suddenly, a tide of possible questions washed over me. I emerged to the surface, gasping, What if he … killed someone?

Ladies and gentlemen—the intercom crackled— please fasten your seat belts. We are beginning our descent into Charlotte.

The plane came in for landing. We felt a jolt as the tires hit the pavement, reconnecting once again to the ground. In some small way, we too were hoping to reconnect with a family we knew little about.

Our older sister met us with a rental car, and the three of us headed for our final destination—Gastonia, North Carolina—the small town where our father had spent his later childhood years.

This was our first trip to North Carolina. As we passed through the countryside, we tried to imagine what his life was like growing up in a small southern town in the early 1900s. We made our final turn into a gravel drive. Leaves crackled under foot as we stepped onto the front lawn, and though tired from the trip, the fresh country air revived us.

There on the porch sat our Aunt Evelyn, swaying softly on a swing. She was a petite woman with dark brown hair, but the spark in her eye let us know immediately that she had a feisty streak. Her smile was warm and inviting. Though the evidence of her many years was apparent, her mind seemed quick and sharp. Her aphorisms were uniquely Southern as they spewed from her mouth with ease. We were just little girls the last time our faces graced hers, and if we were to have passed her on the street, we would have been none the wiser.

Hugs and greetings were freely exchanged. It felt good to be reacquainted once again. Her home was simple and modest. It was apparent that she was not a woman of means—at least not in a worldly sense. It was visibly clear to all who entered what she valued most. The dimly lit walls were adorned with pictures of her most prized possessions—her family. The well-worn furniture put us at ease as we settled in for our visit.

We were amused by her spryness and the way in which she served our lunch. She looked like a little blackjack dealer as she seated us around the table and then proceeded to deal us each two slices of bread, a slice of ham, and then a slice of cheese.

As we began to assemble our sandwiches, her tone turned somber, and her Southern drawl seemed more pronounced.

She looked us dead in the eye and confessed, Y’all know we come from a long line of thieves and murderers, don’t ya?

Bewildered by her comment, we waited for an explanation. She brought an old box to the table and methodically lifted out its contents—a stack of brittle yellowed newspaper clippings, three white folders, and some dog-eared photographs. And there right before our eyes was the proof that what she said was true. With widened eyes, we sat like little girls listening to a bedtime story. Only this was no fairy tale; with attentive ears, we listened as our father’s story was revealed.

Chapter 1

The Pond

What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny

matters compared to what lies within us.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The dawn lit the sky as a steady mist of rain began to fall. The vagueness of his mind was like the haze that filled the air, and he found it hard to tell if he were awake or dreaming. Staggering to his feet he continued on his journey down the road; with each step, he became more aware of his dismal situation.

It was almost morning, and he had been on the move all night. Lack of sleep was catching up as he wove back and forth across the road. He wanted desperately to lie down and sleep, but knew he must keep moving. He stuck to back roads, hiding behind trees, crawling under bushes, and lying down in ditches—whatever it took not to be seen.

It’s a name you can be proud of.

The words echoed as he knelt down by a roadside pond to splash some cold water on his face, setting into motion a wave of ripples like the thoughts that now surged through his mind.

Still in a daze from the previous night’s events, he sat transfixed on the pool of water until it became motionless once again.

He stared intently at the reflection that lay before him. The clarity of the water brought with it clarity of mind, and he found himself face-to-face with a fugitive—an escaped convict. Fear welled inside of him with the awareness he was the man in the pond.

He played his mother’s words over and over again in his mind, trying to make sense of them.

Take the name Wadsworth. It was your father’s name. It’s a name you can be proud of.

Wadsworth—my father’s name was Wadsworth—as if saying it somehow allowed him to feel legitimate. Not knowing his name somehow made it seem as if he’d never really existed, and hearing it for the first time caused his imagination to come alive with images of the man he longed to know. The only thing his mother ever told him was his father had died when he was five years old. She never offered any more information; and somehow, even at his young age, he sensed he was not to question her about it anymore. His entire life he dreamed of finding out who his father was. Now he sat on the side of the road about to lose any opportunity of knowing more because he was a man on the run.

The realization his father existed changed how he felt about himself. A burden had been lifted from his shoulders. And despite his circumstances, for a brief moment, he felt at peace. The feelings, however, were short-lived and gave way to a flood of questions.

Where is he? Does he know about me? Why did my mother wait until now to tell me about him?

Each question unraveled into the next until he felt he was falling apart at the seams.

The chill of the bleak winter air snapped him back into reality and the awareness now he might never know. The sound of a train in the far-off distance was a clear reminder that he needed to keep pushing forward, when everything inside of him wanted only to go back.

Chapter 2

A Point in Time

The South—where roots, place, family and

tradition are the essence of identity.

—Carl N. Degler, historian

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Every person’s life has a beginning, a point in time and place where his or her story is set in motion. For our father, it was the year 1914. His earliest recollections of life began here in the sweet green streets of the South.

Since the time Concord, North Carolina, was settled, it has been known as the land flowing with milk and honey, and just like the Promised Land, it too brought great hopes for a new and better way of life to all who entered, all except those who entered by way of the mill village.

After the Civil War was over, the new South emerged from the wreckage left behind. Textile mills sprang up all over the region, and all hopes of wealth were directly knotted to whirling spindles, beating looms, and bobbing spools. Farming was the lifeblood of most Southern families until well into the twentieth century, but in the area known as the Piedmont, a new era was being ushered in. This land of gently rolling hills and bestirring rivers was quickly fading into the sunset as railroad tracks and mill villages began to pervade the countryside.

Concord borders Charlotte to the north. One of the most important places in Charlotte was the cotton platform. Farmers brought their crops to be weighed, sold, and prepared for shipment. Trains leading north out of Charlotte were made up mostly of boxcars filled with the white gold of the South—cotton. A new culture was on the horizon. The mills brought great prosperity to businessmen and professionals, and no town felt it more than Concord. It was concurred by many to be, a goodly place to dwell.

Our father’s mother, Bessie, was born and raised there. She was the youngest of the five children born to the union of Charlie and Elizabeth Kinley. Great-Grandpa Charlie was a farmer. But by the early 1900s, he and thousands like him traded their toil in the fields to labor in the cotton mills—public work, they called it.

Textile mills became a white domain when the cotton boom drove slave prices up higher than most manufacturers were willing to pay. Mill work was pitched to poor white farmers to supply cheap labor. Labor scouts visited farms in the Appalachian Mountains singing the praises of factory work and persuaded the farmers to trade tending the land for tending machines. They purchased family labor as a package, so the Kinley family became first-generation mill workers. Farm work was hard and certainly had its challenges, but mill work took a different kind of toll, squeezing the life out of its victims. Small farmers like Charlie and many others thought they had found the path to a better way of life for themselves and their families, but they soon discovered the road led only to hardship and poverty.

Their mill village maintained a distinctively rural appearance. Many of the farmers brought some of their livestock with them when they came to the mill village. It wasn’t uncommon to wake up in the morning and find Addy Brook’s milk cow standing in the front yard, or the Meyers’s chickens pecking at the screen door. Some had gardens, and they all shared what they grew. Their scanty dwelling was four small rooms lit by a kerosene lamp and heated by an open fireplace. They drew their water from a common well.

White women dominated the workforce because they worked for less than half a man’s wage. Black men were excluded, as it was taboo for them to associate in any way with white women. Black women were also excluded, with the exception of one, and she was welcomed with open arms, even held in high esteem, at least by those of childbearing years. The average family couldn’t afford the fees doctors charged, so they turned to midwives and healers to birth their babies, and no one knew little ones like Granny Mae.

That winter of 1914, Bessie was twenty years old and twenty pounds overweight. She asked the foreman as he passed by if she could leave work a few minutes early. He stopped, momentarily looked her up and down, grumbled something, and went on his way. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her side like an unwelcome intruder. She doubled over, grabbed on to the loom, and waited for it to pass. As soon as she got her bearings, she started home. The cold air penetrated her worn cloak, and her teeth chattered, as the