The photo to the left is the last known picture of the Weatherly family together: (L-R) Grandpa William Earl Weatherly, Hilda, Grandma Marion Wood Weatherly, and Earl Jr., in Manassas, GA, circa 1930.
FAMILY REUNIONS SOMETIMES HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT. Such is the case with the WOOD FAMILY REUNION that took place at the Reidsville Methodist Church on February 16, 2008. One descendant of the local Wood Clan, Craig Weatherly (a.k.a. Michael Craig), had no intention of "doing" a reunion. He only wanted, as part of a project he took on through Landmark Education, to find out what happened to his grandfather 75 years ago!
Weatherly's grandfather was shot in Evans County one June evening in 1932, allegedly by a young black man. Every single newspaper account from Evans and surrounding counties, however, are either missing or silent on the matter. The Claxton Enterprise, in fact, is missing almost all microfiche records from 1932 to 1938. Weatherly discovered this loss during a December, 2007 visit to the Claxton area to dig up some facts. He didn't find much evidence on that trip, but did manage to meet a lot of his local relatives and got the idea of hosting a reunion.
"They were all very helpful in leading me to other members of the family," explained Weatherly, "especially Hilda Anderson of Bellville, Nancy Anderson and Mary Tootle of Claxton, and Jean Shuman of Reidsville. They helped me uncover many generations of Woods, and I thought a reunion would be an excellent way to bring the family together for healing, solve a few mysteries, and have fun at the same time. " The trail of his grandfather's shooting was still cold, however, so Hilda Anderson gave him the number of a local expert to call.
"I never heard about the shooting," admitted Colonel Pharris Johnson (right), author of the definitive history of the community (Bellville, Georgia, The First Hundred Years, Southeastern Printech, Inc., 1997). "There is lots of things that went on in those days." Weatherly remained undeterred, but was running out of leads.
"If Colonel Johnson never heard about it, and there were no newspaper stories, what could I go by?" mused Weatherly. "I had always heard from my father that Granddaddy died in a hunting accident," explains Weatherly further. "According to dad, Grandaddy Earl was mistaken for a deer by a black man out hunting for his supper. This is the story I always heard growing up in the 50's and 60's anyway . . . after my dad passed away in 1990 and I was no longer in touch with Aunt Hilda or other family members from that side, I forgot about it.
"It was only recently that I heard a different story - one that got me looking into this story . . . Aunt Hilda - with whom I'd only recently become re-aquainted - said that her father was killed at an uncle's place saving someone by trying to take away a gun from a black man and was shot in the head. I ws flabbergasted! How come nobody knew about this? More importantly, how come the story was so different than the one I'd heard??"
Weatherly called some more relatives - his dad's first cousin Mary Alice Branch Walker in Hilton Head Island. She said confirmed the store incident, but didn't want to get into details at the time "since it might hurt some people." She agreed to meet him in December, however, and show his the gravesites and old homestead. This is when the trail took a sudden unexpected turn . . .
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from the Claxton Enterprise and Tattnall Journal.
