Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Sometimes the paper gets it wrong

"Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wright and children," announcement, Alexandria Times-Tribune, 27 July 1914; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 14 March 2015).

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wright and children, John and Virgil Wright, motored to Anderson yesterday and spent the day with Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Wright.

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Oftentimes, the newspapers just don't get it right.  If you've ever been misquoted during an interview, you know what I mean.  Or maybe even witnessed and event and then read the paper the next day to see that it was mangled by the press in the reporting.  Happens all the time, even with the gossip columns of old, apparently.  At least it appears that way in this item.

Charles Wright was a brother to Jesse Wright, so it makes sense that he might have motored to Anderson to visit him.  However, his children were not named John and Virgil Wright.  Charles' children were Fred, Edna, Erma and Paul.  

Now Charles and Jesse did have a brother John Wright, who had a son, Virgil.  John was my maternal 3rd-great grandfather.  At first I thought this story might have meant that Mr. and Mrs. John Wright instead of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wright, but the Mrs. John Wright, my 3rd-great grandmother, Ellen, had passed away in December 1913 so there was no Mrs. John Wright at the time.

What I think happened, was that Charles Wright and his wife went to Anderson and visited his brother, Jesse, and took along his other brother John and John's son, Virgil.  Somehow in the telling of the story to the press, the names and relationships became mangled.

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