A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for John David Wilson
"One Hundred Twenty-Three Biographies of Deceased Faculty Members", compiled by P. O. Shelby, Northeast Missouri State Teachers College, Kirksville, MO, 1963, pp. 77-78 (obtained from Karen Levin):
WILSON, J. D. Professor of Psychology, 1903-1912
J. D. Wilson was born in Howard County, Mo., August 22, 1862, son of David and Sarah Wakeman Wilson. He attended a log school two or three weeks per year for eight years or more. He entered the Kirksville State Normal School, attending perhaps thirty months, graduating in 1886. For each of four years he taught in the fall and attended the Normal School for the remainder of the year. He belonged to the Zetosophian Literary Society and served as secretary, treasurer, and president. He attended the University of Michigan for a year and later took special work for two years at the University of Missouri. The Normal School gave him the degree of bachelor of scientific didactics.
He was superintendent of schools at Cameron for two years and principal of the high school at Sedalia for ten years. He joined the faculty at Kirksville in 1903 and remained till 1912. He was a teacher of Education, but his subject matter was chiefly psychology. He mastered the science of hypnotism and often gave amateur shows around the campus.
He left Kirksville to become superintendent of the Missouri Training School for Boys at Boonville, but remained there only a year. He then was county agricultural agent for Cooper County for two years and then held a similar position at Bentonville, Arkansas, for one year. During World I he was a lecturer at Camp Pike, Arkansas. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was principal of Pope School for six years.
Professor Wilson married Miss Clara Carroll on June 18, 1890. They had six children: Edna (Mrs. Charles A. Walz), Mabel (Mrs. Virgil D. Wall), Clara (Mrs. R. K. Brommer), Carroll (Mrs. Wier), John and Sam. He belonged to the Christian Church and the Republican Party.
He died at Memphis, Tenn., February 6, 1934, and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Memphis.
Some of the bio isn't quite right. First, it should say he attended a log school two or three months per year (not weeks). Karen Levin also sent me a questionnaire that he apparently filled out himself by hand, which much of this bio is based on, and his answer to "How long did you attend each [school]?" was "Two or three months in the year for 8 or 10 yrs." Second, as far as I know, his mother's name was not Wakeman.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
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