Waters traced lineage for African-Americans in Lenoir County

Thelma Waters spent the last 25 years of her life uncovering the past.

Although she believed the African-American community possesses a strong oral history, she knew it needed to be recorded.

“I felt like there was a need for accumulating and compiling lost history,” Waters said during an October 2010 interview with The Free Press. “If it’s not documented, it’s worthless.”

After retiring from Contentnea Elementary School in 1986, the former fourth-grade teacher starting putting together books which chronicled the African-American community in Kinston and Lenoir County.

She passed away Sept. 1, 2011, at Kitty Askins Hospice Center in Goldsboro.

Along with Waters, Jane Phillips, president of Historical Preservation Group, was a member of the Heritage Genealogy Society. Phillips said the mother, historian and genealogist, “always strived to help people see the significance of their family history.”

“All the members of the society loved her,” Phillips said. “She had a strong interest in genealogy and wanted to promote it through the African-American community.”

Members of the society said Waters had a deep need to preserve the past for future generations in order that they may know about their heritage and history. She was dedicated to this mission in her life and she spent many hours on her research and interviewing people.

Her works include histories of Lincoln City, black morticians in the county, Adkin High School and her family.

In 2004, she finished documenting the history of the black schools in Lenoir County. Copies of her research on the schools are available at Lenoir Community College, the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library, the Board of Education office and city hall.

Waters called finding records of her grandfather, Homer Simmons, who was a slave, one of her greatest accomplishments as a genealogist. She found a picture of the bill of sale for her slave grandfather and grandmother.

“When I saw his name, I jumped up,” Waters said in 2010, as she waved her hands over head reliving the moment in her East Kinston home. “All the ladies in the (LCC) library came over. That helped calm me down a little.”

Waters used information from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the Office of Archives and History in Raleigh, the Jones County Courthouse and grave sites in Kinston.

Ranita Gaskins, library assistant at LCC, said there are several volumes at the library compiled by Waters.

“As far as our African-American collection, she is probably the only resource we have,” she said. “For the most part she gave us whatever research she had. In the back of Heritage Place we have bookcase was nothing but her collection on it.”

Justin Hill can be reached at 252-559-1078 or jhill@freedomenc.com.