People often underestimate the types of records available in their genealogy work. I’ve always believed you can find what you seek if you search hard enough.
One of our goals as genealogists is to learn about who are ancestors were, quite often we must accept only the facts and figures of their census records, perhaps a deed that happened, however once in a while, we get to truly get to know our cousins in a way that speaks to who they were.
Lucking out by finding newspaper articles and, once in a while, a true treasure that is beyond precious, a diary. Diaries can contain valuable information about births, weddings, and deaths in a community, where other evidence can fail to be found.
Pastor Charles Edgar Wauford(1885-1963) is one of our cousins and DeKalb kin who left his diaries behind with daily notes. Rev. Wauford descends from John Warford(1765-1847), one of the original DeKalb County Families, and it is believed their land lay in the Dismal area outside of Dowelltown.
Charles was born in Helton, DeKalb County, the son of Samuel David Warford and Rachel Ann McCullogh. He would serve as a military chaplain in World War I and become a Baptist minister.
Luckily Daphene, knowing that the diaries of Charles were important, took the opportunity to transcribe many of these when she had them. The original copies are in the Carthage Library in Smith County, Tennessee.
An additional diary covers his ordination and encompasses the 1903-1909 years. This awaits transcription, and work will be done to digitize it to share later this year. A hidden gem in this diary is that it also shares a complete list of all the sermons he preached until 1929.
We are lucky to have the 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1921, 1922, and 1924 diaries. Charles was dedicated to making his entries each day, and we journey through his life one day at a time through his thoughts on the weather, how close he was to his family, and his life with his wife Helen Fay Grigsby Wauford(1892-1940).
We are excited to share these today and look forward to adding additional ones. These links will take you to the WikiTree pages for the diaries and see them as transcribed.
- 1909 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1910 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1911 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1912 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1913 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1915 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1921 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1922 Diary of Charles E Wauford
- 1924 Diary of Charles E Wauford
We hope you enjoy reading these as much as we have, and we look forward to rereading them as we integrate the information in his profile and those of the lives he touched.
For myself, this was an extraordinary journey to travel back 100+ years, getting to know a cousin in such an intimate way and imagining the warmth of my DeKalb family, who understood and found contentment in peace and simple life.
Please grab a cup of tea and join me on an intimate journey to get to know life at a slower time.
If you have diaries for those who lived in DeKalb, we’d love to see them and share them with our DeKalb family; we can be reached at dekalb.tennessee.genealogy@gmail.com.
DeKalb County, Tennessee Genealogy Association 