Gold Bar for Centenarian
by Carol P. Martoccia Brown Library, Washington, NC
| Gold Bar for Centenarian |
| May I be privileged to bring loving greetings to the State Presidents and
to all local associations in the Confederated Southern Memorial Association
to our beloved and distinguished President General and to all of her staff
officers. Greetings and best wishes for the entire work, a new year of
lively interest, fine and lasting achieving. North Carolina is loyal and
true to the Confederate cause, and we are keeping her traditional memories
green. On Sunday, December 19, 1926, it was my high privilege and pleasure
to ride more than two hundred miles to bestow the Bar of Honor on Mrs Julia
Anne Pridgen, of Currie, NC. She celebrated her one hundred and third
birghday anniversary on November 3, 1926. Her eldest son, MM Pridgen,
served throughout the war period in Brice's company, under General Whiting;
a younger son served at a tender age the latter part of the war in railroad
construction work; her husband served the period of the war in constructive
foundry work; she gave of her personal best work for the soldiers, three of
them her own, in rearing and providing for her twelve children and serving
her neighbors as general helper, adviser, and in administering medical
service when and where physicians were unobtainable. Mrs Pridgen is typical
of the brave, indomitable, ingenius, enduring, sacrificing women of teh
period of the sixties. She is finely preserved, few gray hairs showing in
her raven locks, faculties clear, interested in home, loved ones, and
affairs; a fine dinner being prepared for all guests assembled, she quickly
leaves off conversing and repairs to the rear to "hurry up dinner." Her
daughters, Misses Marietta and Julia, living with theri mother, were
supervising. Her son and youngest child, Mr. Rufus D. Pridgen, the faithful
head of the household, was master of ceremonies. His mother in his hands is
tenderly cared for. After dinner we repaired to the rear yard, he
entertaining us for a brief while by feeding wild birds of the
semi-tropical, Southern, moss-laden forests near by, filling his hands with
pecan nuts, the birds, in turn, suddenly lighting on his hand and, in every
instance swiftly taking away the largest nut piece. We held a brief, pretty, and impressive service, another son, Mr. D.L. Pridgen, designated by the State President, decorated his venerated, venerable mother with the Bar of Honor bestowed by Mrs Jesse Jackson Yates, of Asheville, North Carolina State President, in behalf of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association and the President General, Mrs. Arthur McDermot Wilson, of Atlanta Ga.
Cordially and fraternally, |
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