Author: Kathi

This is a family portrait (circa 1891, taken in Geneva, Nebraska) of my 2nd-great grandfather, George Franklin Pierce Wilson and his family.  Back row (left to right) Dollie Elizabeth Wilson, age 12, Charles Issac Wilson, 16, Clara Etta Wilson (my great-grandmother), 15.  Seated in front (left to right) George Franklin Pierce Wilson, 38, Clarence Cornelius Wilson, 11, Nancy Minerva Lightbody Wilson, 38.

C.C. (Clarence Cornelius) Wilson, Jr. was my 1 cousin 2X removed.

Partial transcription from the Savannah Reporter, July 4, 1930  (Savannah, Missouri)

“Youth Killed Wednesday Morning

Great Western 5 a.m. Passenger Saw Him Sitting on Track Below Sanatorium.

Funeral services for C.C. Wilson, Jr., whose body was found by the Great Western train crew Wednesday morning, were held yesterday afternoon at 3 o’clock at the Breit Funeral Home with Rev. B.L. Holcomb, pastor of the M.E. Church South, in charge.  Burial was in the Savannah cemetery…

…The family, the coroner and all are at a loss to know why he was sitting on the track after daylight, as the train reaches Savannah at 4:49.  The 6 o’clock interurban would have taken him home in another hour and there was no freight for him to catch to go to his home at Industrial City.  Besides he had never been known to do this.  He has been working with his father at stone and concrete work, especially foundation work.  His father had told him they were not going to work Wednesday and there was no reason for him to hurry home.  Heretofore when he missed the car he had been going to the home of his associate workman, young Wampler, and remaining until morning.

 The passenger train which struck him does not stop at Savannah.  He and his father had been working on the foundation at the Bunse farm near Cosby and also the concrete foundation for Mr. Willoughby at Rochester.  If C.C. had started to walk before 1 o’clock down the track he would have been home before 5 o’clock but there would have been no reason in his going alone down the track and his habit of being careful with his best clothes and having money sufficiently he would not start home to walk along nine miles at that time of night.  Undertaker Briet says there was no evidence whatever of there being any intoxicating liquor about the body.  The family say emphatically that C.C. never was a sound sleeper…

…This biography was read at the service yesterday:

 C.C. Wilson, second son of Clarence C. and Daisy M. Wilson, was born in Savannah August 10, 1912, and died in Savannah July 2, 1930, aged 17 years, 10 months and 22 days.  He had spent practically all his life in Savannah and attended the Savannah school.  He was of exemplary habits and was industrious and fair in all his dealings and well liked by all who know him.  He is survived by his father and mother, four brothers, Paul R., Earle, Jewell and Eugene; two sisters, Dorothy Norene and Carol Evelyn, his grandfather J.M. Rogers, and a number of uncles and aunts and other relatives.”