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Collection: MARTHA ELIZABETH BLALOCK VICKERS LETTERS
1878-1904; 1936
P.C,
Physical Description: 32 letters; 8 miscellaneous items (1 in duplicate);
1 photograph; 8 envelopes
Acquisition: Gift of Mrs. Karl S. (Dorothy) Vickers, Jr., Winston-Salem, N.C.
April 6, 1988.
Description: This small collection of . letters, all but four of which are
addressed to Martha Elizabeth Blalock Vickers between 1878 and 1904, reflect
a mother's memories of halpiness and tears. The essential correspondence in
the collection relates to her marriage . (over family opposition) to M. Modd
Vickers, a teacher in the Durham County schools. During 1884, Vickers
apparently. gave up teaching and lived in Reidsville where he ran a saloon,
but teachers' certificates dated 1886 and 1888 suggest that he resumed his
teaching career in Durham County. It appears, further, that he disposed of
the Reidsville saloon and invested in one in Greensboro. The latter, located
in the Adams Building, was run by a manager in 1886 while Vickers returned
to Durham. In 1888, Vickers removed his family to Winston, N.C., and sometime
between the years 1893 and 1899 was killed while performing duty as a police
officer. The death of the father appears to have had an adverse effect on
the elder of the two sons, Cabot, and three of the letters relate to his
misadventures between 1899 and 1904. Mrs. Vickers ultimately remarried, this
time to a Winston-Salem retail grocer named F. H. Wallington.
Correspondence ;
1878 June-December . Sixteen prenuptial letters of M. Modd Vickers and
Martha Elizabeth Blalock ("Darling Lizzy"), commencing with the renewal of
their engagement and ending on the eve of their marriage. (Their marriage
entry in the Orange County marriage register under date of Dec. 12, 1878,
reports her age as 20 and his as 23; their marriage took place in the Baptist
Church at Durham and was celebrated by the Rev. C. Durham.) Although the
couple had been engaged to be married prior to the beginning of this corre¬
spondence, the opposition of the Blalock family to the match had led to the
engagement being broken off. In these letters, Modd Vickers begins the
correspondence by asking that the engagement be renewed. She agrees to the
proposal, and will join in an exchange of correspondence and photographs,
but he must not call on her at home. She urges that their go-between, Ezra,