Page 12 - Gary's Book - Final Copy 7.9.2017_Active

• Dad’s mother, Ida Lee Dalton, who lived only about two miles away, one or
two years later, married Thomas Jefferson Sprouse. My father heard things

said within the family as a child but did not confront his mother about them
until he was fifteen when she did confirm that he was, indeed, a Wilson. He
was the son of John Albert Wilson. However, her husband was never to ever
openly discuss it with any family members. (So, if Dad was actually a

Wilson, then I am really a Wilson – not a Sprouse. Hmm. . .)
• Dad’s stepfather, Thomas Jefferson Sprouse, didn’t really accept him and

treated him differently than he did the other children. Therefore, at age 16,
Dad ran away and joined the U.S. Army. Since he was tall and mature for
his age, he was not challenged because of his youth.

• Dad had some half-brothers and half-sisters: Eugene Worth Sprouse; Mable
Eloise Sprouse; a baby who died two days after birth and is buried in Post
Tell, Tennessee; Hilda Olivia Sprouse who was 16 years old when she died

and was buried near Atlanta, Georgia; Thomas Sprouse who was born after
Dad ran away – sometime in 1919.
• When Eugene was born, the family lived near Weaversville, North Carolina,

in a nice large farm house even though Thomas Jefferson Sprouse was not a
farmer.
• Thomas Jefferson Sprouse had family about a mile away by the name of

Black. They were known as a rough bunch – a bunch of gangsters, pure
outlaws.
• Thomas Jefferson Sprouse had a stepsister, Lorra Black, who was a family

trouble maker.
• Dad’s grandfather on his mother’s side, William A. Dalton, sold the farm

and moved to Ashville, North Carolina. A year later, his wife died and was
buried in Walnut, North Carolina. Dalton was a well-educated man who
stood about 6’3” tall and weighed about 210 pounds. He had blue eyes, a
fair complexion, sandy red hair, and was a clean and a neat dresser. He was

a lieutenant in the Confederate Army and believed the South should have
won the war. He was also a freemason in the Masonic Order.

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