Wall Family Papers 1900-1992

The Wall family of Morven, North Carolina, includes John Nelson Wall (1904-1992); his wife, Frances MacGregor Wall (1909-1949); and their son John Nelson Wall Jr. (1945- ).

Frances Smith MacGregor Wall was born on August 22, 1909, in Lilesville, North Carolina. Her father, John MacGregor, was a farm demonstration agent employed by the Cooperative Extension Service in North Carolina; her mother, Georgia MacGregor, operated a boarding house for school teachers living in the area. Frances attended the North Carolina College for Women (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), where she received a degree in education. After graduating, she taught home economics at Lilesville High School. In 1935, she began work as a 4-H home demonstration agent for Cleveland County. She remained with the organization and was promoted to assistant 4-H club leader for the State of North Carolina in 1937. Her chief obligations were to organize local 4-H club functions, demonstrate to young women on the domestic arts, write newspaper articles, and deliver radio broadcasts to promote the 4-H program.

John Nelson Wall was born on February 20, 1904, in Morven, North Carolina, to Edwin and Inez Wall. He was the youngest of their ten children. Wall enrolled in North Carolina State College (later North Carolina State University) in 1923 and 1924 to study mechanical engineering.

In the late 1920s, John Nelson Wall organized work parties that traveled to the midwestern United States to participate in summer wheat harvests. The groups were known as the "Wheatfield Gang."

After 1929, Wall settled permanently in Morven, taking a job with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. He attended the Morven Presbyterian Church, eventually becoming a Ruling Elder, and was also an active member of the Kilwinning Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge.

John Wall and Frances MacGregor met in 1933 and maintained a correspondence throughout their courtship. They married in 1944, and the correspondence continued as Frances's work with the 4-H association often kept them apart. In 1945 the couple had a son, John Nelson Wall Jr., and Frances resigned her post with 4-H and was, in 1946, working as a home economics instructor at Morven High School. In April 1949, Frances was hospitalized and treated for cancer. After experiencing a brief period of recovery, she died that August at the age of forty.

John Nelson Wall Sr. worked for the North Carolina Department of Transportation in Anson County for more than forty years. He died on September 29, 1992, at the age of eighty-eight.

John Nelson Wall Jr. graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill with a BFA in English in 1967 and earned his master's degree in English in 1969 from Duke University. He received a doctorate in English from Harvard in 1973 and joined the faculty of North Carolina State University's English Department that same year.

The Wall Family Papers document the lives of John Nelson Wall; his wife, Frances MacGregor Wall; and their son, John Nelson Wall Jr.; along with various members of their extended family, friends, and professional acquaintances between 1900 and 1992. The bulk of the collection is correspondence written between the years of 1920 and 1960, much of which was exchanged between John and Frances from 1933 to 1949, during their extended courtship and early years of marriage. There is also a good deal of correpsondence sent to John Nelson Wall by women that he most likely met while traveling to wheat harvests in various locations throughout the 1920s, as well as photographs taken durring these travels.

The collection also contains photographs, papers and correspondence related to Frances MacGregor Wall's work for the 4-H organization and the various educational and promotional events she conducted over the course of her travels as demonstration agent. Of particular interest are the transcripts of her radio broadcasts for 4-H.

Clippings and photographs related to the childhood and education of John Nelson Wall Jr. are included as well.

The collection is divided into three series:

• 1. Personal Papers
• 2. Correspondence
• 3. Photographs

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This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.

[Identification of item], Wall Family Papers, MC 00329, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Gift of John Nelson Wall Jr., 2002 December (Accession no. 2002-0018) and 2007 April (Accession no. 2007-0126)

Processed by Michael Watts and Dani Nation, May 2007

Encoded by Dani Nation, May 2007