Lessons from the Bible

I wrote a story recently about finding a 1902 Tampa newspaper article about my great grandfather, William Augustus Lundy, going to visit the Glenn Springs Resort in South Carolina. Glenn Springs was well known as a mineral springs that many thought had healing waters.

 

At the time I speculated he was going there to compare it to his own fountain of youth enterprise in Manatee County Florida.

 

A cousin in Bradenton, Florida ended up with the Lundy family bible and found many old letters inside. This one, dated August 10, 1902 was written by William Lundy to his daughter Viola Lundy Wilson and actually mentions they were leaving the next day for Glenn Springs. He died of cancer five months later.

 

It is clear from the letter that they were going to the resort to see if it would help his cancer. He says "maybe it will be some help to me." He ends the letter saying "my trust is in God and his will be done." 

 

He also tells Viola: "I was more than glad to hear that you had thought of a Savior. Trust God with all your heart and you will never find that life is so burdensome."

 

I guess this is the last letter he wrote her since he died in January.

 

Viola's family has been a mystery in many ways. She and her sister Ida married brothers. She was first, marrying James A. Wilson in 1901 and my great grandparents, Benjamin Franklin Wilson and Ida Lundy were married in 1903.

 

Viola died young, at age 22 in 1905. The family story is that she was buried in Major Adams Cemetery in Bradenton but there is no marker for her there. Her husband James disappeared shortly after and the story is that he moved to Quincy, Florida. Their son, Emery Lundy Wilson who was born in 1904 was raised by his aunt Ellen Wilson Dortch in Tampa. The last record I've found of Emery was the 1930 census when he was living in Detroit.