ELIZA (LILA) EVANS WILLIAMS EARLY LIFE

 My grandmother, nicknamed Lila, the second of four children, was born in Cumberland Co, NC on October 28, 1888 to Peter McKellar and Eliza (Lila) Faison Evans Williams. My grandmother’s brother and sisters were all born in Clinch Co, GA, but for some reason her mother returned to Cumberland County for her birth. My great grandparents had moved from North Carolina to Clinch County in southern Georgia in 1884 to work in the turpentine business; therefore, they raised their children in the swamps close to the Florida border. Young Lila must have been quite a tomboy from comments she made about her life in southern Georgia. She loved living in this beautiful part of the country and grew up playing with frogs and running through the swamp with no fear of snakes, alligators or other swamp animals.

My grandmother right and her sisters Annebel and Sarah taken around 1892

Since they lived far from any school, the children were home-schooled by a live-in teacher until they were old enough for high school. One of the teachers, named Mrs. Gedding, came from Indiana. She spent eight months in the winters of 1898 to 1901 teaching young Lila and her sisters and brother the three R’s. The family, except for her father P. Mc K. Williams, moved north to Blackshear, Pierce Co, GA in October or November of 1902 so the children could attend High School. My grandmother attended The Presbyterian Institute school. Her father continued to work and live in Clinch Co, GA, but often visited his family on the weekend. During the summer vacation the family returned to Clinch County. Peter Williams decided to move to Blackshear in 1907. The Presbytery of Savannah founded the school in 1901 to give southern Georgia children a good educational, moral and spiritual basis for college and life. Some of the schools students came from Blackshear, but others lived in the dorms and came from other parts of Georgia. The cost of going to the school in 1905 was $130 per year or only about $3,000 in 2006 dollars. The fee included the nine-month term, board and tuition. My grandmother graduated in May 1905 along with eleven other students equally divided between males and females. During her time at the school Lila Williams studied math, English, history, science as well as music. In February 1905 she sang “Melody in F” by Rubenstein and “Pilgrim’s Chorus” by Wagner at a recital at the Institute Hall. The recital included other students enrolled in the school. The Blackshear Times Newspaper claimed the hall was filled to capacity.

AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE

In the fall of 1905, my grandmother left home to attend Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA and graduated in May 1910 with twelve other young women all from the southeast. While at Agnes Scott, she took a well-rounded series of courses in English, literature, math, history, foreign languages German and French, science and music. She even took a course in chemistry and one in physics as well as ones in biology and geology. Her music courses included voice, piano and harmony. Each course lasted for one year rather than one semester. At the end of four years she accumulated 57 B.A. hours and needed 60 hours to graduate. She, therefore, attended the school for one more year and graduated with 70 hours. During her first two years, she received numeral grades. The grades ranged from 81 to 95 with the highest ones being math and harmony. During the last three years she received letter grades and made mostly B's and C's. A grade of C back before 1910 is most likely equivalent to a grade of B or higher today. When I was growing up she told me many times to get a well rounded education.

The three sisters taken around 1905 and around 1960

She certainly did. During her college years she often returned to Blackshear for visits and summer vacations. While at home, she attended parties at her friends home which were reported in the Blackshear Times. At Agnes Scott she served as president of the Mnemosynean Literary Society in the second term of her senior year, sang second soprano in the glee club, played guard on the college scrub team (I guess the back up basketball team), and managed the senior basketball team [1910 Agnes Scott school annual]. The following unedited poem is below her senior picture in the 1910 school annual.

"Lila Williams is another of the Seniors fair
Who besides being fair are extremely rare.
She can play and she can sing and easily carry the tune
She sits in the Decatur chair and never comes in too soon
In the library she becomes Miss Bucher's mainstay,
And is always so happy day after day."

AFTER COLLEGE

In 1907 Dr. Mary Martin became the resistant physician at Agnes Scott College. She held this position for only a short time for on July 2, 1908 she married Dr. Eustace Sloop in Blowing Rock, NC, and they settled in the mountain town of Plumtree, NC to practice medicine. In December 1911 Dr. and Dr. Sloop moved from Plumtree to the mountain town of Crossnore, NC where they both practiced medicine and became involved in the education of the children of the area. The old, dark one room school building had no electricity, and; therefore, it was difficult for the children to learn to read. Around 1912 the Sloops were instrumental in expanding the school with the addition of a new more modern building and adding another teacher to make a total of two. In the early 1900’s most of the mountain children dropped out of school by the fourth grade. Through the efforts of the Sloops, many of these children stayed in school past the fourth grade. Sometimes later the Crossnore School began to cater to homeless and disadvantaged children from Western North Carolina and the school still plays a vital role in educating many homeless and problem children from the state of North Carolina.

After my grandmother graduated in 1910, she moved to Cumberland Co, NC, where her parents had relocated in 1909. Sometimes later my grandmother, most likely in 1912 and at the invitation of Mary Sloop, decided to work as a teacher at the Crossnore School. Lila Williams may have been hired as the second teacher mentioned in the paragraph above. My grandmother took the train by herself to a mountain town close to the school. Nobody met her at the train station, but some nice gentleman gave her a buggy ride to the school. After teaching for a few months or maybe up to a year at the school and living under very primitive conditions, my grandmother moved back to Cumberland Co, NC. She moved in with her Aunt Augusta and Uncle Neil Curie to teach at a one room school in the Clarkton, Bladen Co, NC. The Curie children attended this school. After a period of time she decided teaching was not for her. I do not know for sure which teaching job came first. She may have taught at Clarkton before she helped Dr. Sloop in Crossnore.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

Sometimes after graduating from college and moving to Cumberland County my grandmother fell in love with an older man, Crawford MacKethan, from a very wealthy family. Something happen and they broke up. Mr. MacKethan died a few years later. My grandfather later said in jest “you should have married him first and then married me, and we would be rich.” My grandmother first met my grandfather Tom Rose, her fourth cousin, in 1905/6 dressed in his Horner Military uniform. She told some of her grandchildren that she fell in love with him right then for he was so handsome in his uniform. In the Fayetteville area, young Lila again met my grandfather most likely through her Aunt Jean (her mother’s sister) who had previously married my grandfather's brother Augustus Rose. After a suitable court ship, my grandparents married on October 27, 1914, just one day before her twenty-sixth birthday so she would not be older than him. The marriage took place at Woodland, the home of her parents and the ancestral home of her mother's family the Evans. This was the ninth family wedding at Woodland over two generations. Her parents had the home decorated with chrysanthemums, ferns, southern smilax and galax leaves. Numerous candles lit the home. She wore a plain and brocaded satin skirt with a long pointed train. After the wedding the family served a dinner to the guests in the dining room. Someone took my grandparents to a train station, and they left for Baltimore, MD by a northbound train. My grandmother later told my mother, that she left her beloved south to go north with a man she hardly knew.

My grandparents lived for a for a few years in Baltimore, MD but in late 1919 they moved back to North Carolina and spent most of the rest of their lives in either Fayetteville or Chapel Hill, NC. In the early to mid 1920’s, they lived in the home shown below on Hillside Avenue in Fayetteville near the homes of many of their relatives.

During the depression in the 1930’s they lost their home because my grandfather could not pay the mortgage. The house would have been paid for within a year or so. He would not purchase another house until he could pay cash for it; therefore, they lived in rented homes over the next 20 years. In 1955, they built a small home on about one-half acre of land on top of a hill at 102 Howell Lane in Chapel Hill. The gray framed home with white trim had two bedrooms, two baths, a living room across the front, a kitchen, a small den and a large screened porch on the west side. My grandparents later converted the single car garage in the back of the house into a larger den, which was air-conditioned.

Lila Rose with daughter Eliza taken in 1916 and around 1910

Three Eliza’s taken in the early 1940’s

Hillside Avenue home in Fayetteville (picture taken 2004)

They spent most of their time at home on the porch. My grandmother filled the yard around the house with flowers and rose bushes. They called their home Rose Cottage. See a picture of the house above.

My grandmother raised four children, one born in Baltimore and the other three born in Fayetteville. My mother, Eliza, was the first born in 1915. Lila Rose did not want her oldest child born in the north so she returned to Fayetteville for my mother’s birth. Annie Lea, the second child, was born in Baltimore in 1919. She was named for ancestors of her father. I do not know why grandmother did not return to Fayetteville for her birth. My grandmother developed phlebitis during this pregnancy and may have been unable to return south. Tommy named for his father was born in 1921 in Fayetteville, NC, as was Sara, named for her mother’s sister, eleven years later in 1932.

OUTSIDE INTEREST AND CHARACTER

Lila Rose was a loving mother and grandmother who very much enjoyed her family, especially her twelve grandchildren. When I was in my late teens she told me how fortunate she was to have so many grandchildren because she could worry about them and not her own health. She was a loyal member of the Presbyterian Church for all of her 96 years and involved in many of the churches activities. She loved to garden and very much liked to tend to her yard with great emphasis on her flowers and rose bushes. She planted, pruned and did all the necessary things to make her yard look beautiful. My grandmother like many women of her times did not drive; therefore, her husband, children and sometimes her grandchildren took her places she needed to go. I can remember driving grandmother on errands such as to the grocery store. In those days if no one was available to take her it was easy for my grandmother to call in an order to the grocery store and have the groceries delivered.

My grandparents on their 60th wedding anniversary in 1974

She grew to an average size woman of about five feet four inches tall with long brown hair that she kept rolled up on the top of her head. In fact, even as she aged her hair remained brown with only a little gray appearing. As a young lady she was quite beautiful, and I imagine many a young men came a calling. Her youthful tomboy nature gave way to a very refined soft-spoken southern lady, as she grew older. She was a very strong resilient woman. For example, my grandmother broke her hip due to a fall down a step when she was in her 80’s. This accident would have killed most older women of the time, but she was determined to recover. She did everything the rehab nurse told her to do; therefore, with in few months she was out in the yard tending to her garden with a walker instead of sitting in a wheel chair. A short time later she threw the walker away for she had made a complete recovery.

She enjoyed good health during her life. She was an active woman and only slowed down after a series of mini strokes beginning in her mid to late eighties. She died on September 3, 1984 in Chapel Hill, NC just two months prior to her ninth-sixth birthday. She is buried beside her husband in the University Cemetery in Chapel Hill, NC.