You know what makes for a great start to the new year? Being contacted by a distant cousin who found me via Google searching -yay! My newly-found cousin is a great-granddaughter of Richard Wimberly (1860-1921) & Lina Petway (1870-1963) of Tarboro, Edgecombe County, NC. Richard is a brother to my 3rd-great-grandmother Mariah Wimberly McNair (1843-1903).
As I spoke to my cousin on the phone this evening, she shared with me that she remembered her grandmother telling stories about the family’s departure from the Battle Plantation in Tarboro. The family story is that that when the family left the plantation, they piled their belongings up on wagons – with two rocking chairs on top. One rocking chair fell off the wagon and broke, but the other was passed down through the generations and my cousin has it!
This is the rocking chair (it has since be refinished) of Richard & Lina’s. How fortunate that my cousin has this as a way to cherish her family history.
A Family Heirloom
