Category: Hilda
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The Marriage License of Herbert Wilson and Hilda Flowers
A few weeks ago I came across the marriage license of Geraldine Wilson’s parents, Herbert Wilson and Hilda Flowers. I exhausted the Philadelphia archive, but apparently, I searched the wrong archive. I was in the wrong state. Although the couple held their wedding in Philadelphia and resided there, they crossed state lines for a license. […]
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A Birth Certificate, A Research First in the Flowers Family History
I have researched the Flowers family for the past three years and never found a birth certificate for any member of this family. Was I surprised? It was not a required document to be recorded at a black child’s birth. For most African Americans born in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century, birth […]
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From Mother to Daughter: “What Do I Tell My Children Who Are Black?”
History helps us to understand who we are and how deep our roots have grown. It teaches us that we are a people with a glorious past that had its beginning in the dark corners of African civilizations centuries ago and spread to the lighted civilizations of today. In the following pages you will discover […]
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The Return of the Flowers Family History
Photo from the Messiah College Archives The history of the first international students to attend Messiah College is officially done. It has been a good, long break away from the Flowers family. Two months to be exact. With the help of a former professor there has been a few leads including the official date as […]
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Letters From Rachel
In Geraldine Wilson’s unprocessed collection, there are numerous letters between her and her Aunt Rachel. This is my first encounter with Rachel’s handwriting. Transcription: Dear Jerry, You had said over the phone that you would contact me when you returned to New York. I did not contact you because Harry told me you were […]
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Short Introduction
To do list: Apply to graduate school Choose a date to take the GRE Study for the GRE Figure out how to pay for these outrageous application fees Call my momma…I have not talk to her in more than three weeks. I wish I could say I was relaxing my senior year, you know taking […]
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The Memories of Those You Are Remembering
Yesterday, I finally received my photocopies from Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem, New York. I took off of work for the remainder of the day and started my research back up. It is a beautiful thing when a researcher is reunited with her researcher. I had no idea where to […]
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They Will Be Remembered
I am not an historian. When I went to the deep South for the first time in 1963…I received my first bibliography on the black experience in this country. It came not from a university professor, but from a black SNCC worker. I have made the personal discovery of the history of my people […]
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Great Expectations
We hold these truths that we all have expectations for ourselves and others. I see this as one of the hardest aspects of genealogy (or doing a family’s history). The more I uncover about the Flowers family the more expectations I hold for each individual. When I first “met” Rachel Flowers, I thought she was […]
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Her Resume: Hilda Clifford Flowers Wilson
I wonder why her middle name is Clifford. First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my inactivity on the blog. I was originally going to post about Hilda’s diary entries, yet deciphering her handwriting became to big of a task especially when I am working at the same time and planning a […]
Diary of a Historian 