Rowan-Iredell County NcArchives News.....Holder Brothers Meet Here After 50 Years Separation. June 6, 1942
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Robert F. Delay Fremill99@aol.com May 4, 2018, 9:23 pm

THE COLUMBIA RECORD, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA. June 6, 1942

THE COLUMBIA RECORD.
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA.
TODAY'S NEWS TODAY.
SATURDAY, JUNE 06, 1942.
PAGE #7.
Holder Brothers Meet Here After 50 Years Separation.
   Two brothers had not met for half a century sat this morning on the porch of a
North Sum
a North Sumter street home and swapped tales of their boyhood, 60 to 75 years ago,
in the
ago, in the North Carolina hills.
   They were R. L. Holder, 77, of Ferris, Texas, and H. A. Holder, 86, of 1817
Sumter St.
Sumter St. A third brother lives in Columbia. He is E. A. Holder, of 506 Etowah, al
Etowah, also is almost a stranger to his brother, R. L.
   Actually, it was 49 years and six months ago, in January 1893, that R. L. Holder,
w
Holder, whose moustache and black chin beard attested to his vigor, left their Rowan
cou
Rowan county home, near Salisbury, N. C., to make a home in Texas.
   "What did I say to H. A. when I first saw him here a couple of weeks ago after a

after a separation of 50 years," said R. L., this morning. "The first thing I said
to 
said to him was what the governor of North Carolina said to the governor of South
Ca
South Carolina! It's been a long time between drinks."
   H. A. grinned back at his "Kid" brother and knowing full well that he could pass
fo
pass for 60 to 65 instead of 77, added; "The first thing I said to him was, You're 
You're looking mighty old, I hadn't seen him for 50 years." H. A. continu
continued, "and I hadn't seen his face for longer than that, for he wore that
moustac
moustache and beard for some time before he left Rowan county.
RECALL BOYHOOD.
   The Texan, R. L., returned his brother's smile and retorted, "Remember that time

time we all slipped off to the swimming hole. One of us went back home first, and w
and when our father asked him where he had been answered that he had been in swimm
swimming." "Father said, well, I won't whip you because you told the truth," in a
lit
a little bit, the rest of us got home and father asked where we had been. We said 
said we had been down in the orchard. Father asked, "were you with your broth
brother?" We said yes, and then father said, "Well, your brother has already told 
told me he has been in swimming, so I am going to punish you for telling a lie,"
lie," and he did.
   R. L. retired after harvesting his cotton crop from the black soil belt of Texa
Texas last November, and now he is enjoying his retirement by looking up the kinp
kinpeople he has not seen for scores of years, though when his trip to the Caro
Carolinas is over, he expects to return to his Texas lands where his three sons and

and two daughters live.
   For a long time, however, he has been the visitor in the holder clan. In 192
1920, he decided on the spur of the moment to go to Muskogee, Okla., to visit his
his ailing sister, Mrs. R. L. Parker, whom he had not seen for 35 years, and now
now he is glad that he did, for she has since died.
   Mr. Holder had left his home to spend a day in town, and while there learned th
that his sister was in Muskogee, bought a ticket and got on board.
SCOTCH ANCESTRY.
   The three brothers now re-united here are the grandsons of Willis Holder, who
who, with two brothers, came to this country from Scotland. Willis settled in Ire
Iredell county, N. C., while one brother went to Tennessee and the third to Ala
Alabama.
   Their parents, A. G. and Susan B. Holder had eight children, and the family la
last was all together at the old homeplace in 1881. Another brother, now 83, fo
followed R. L. to Texas in the 1890's and now lives near him, in the vicinity of
of Ferris, about 20 miles from dallas.
   R. L. brought with him from Ferris a sample of the "Texas black dirt" which g
grows cotton so prolifically that, that state has become the largest cotton p
producer in the union, and grows it so cheaply that South Carolina farmers are h
hard put to compare with Texas staple, and also a sample of the gray blue shale w
which, around Ferris, lies beneath seven or eight feet of the black dirt which o
once was sea bottom. "I took this black dirt from one of my cotton fields in J
January," Mr. Holder said, displaying a sample on the point of his knife. "I h
have added no water to it, you see, it still is moist." He kneaded a lump of t
the black, clay like soil in his fingers, and it held it's shape like a p
potter's clay. The gray shale once made Feris one of the nation"s brick c
centers, since it can be ground and pressed into bricks without the addition of w
water and without fire.
   For minutes at a time, the two brothers sit silent, smiling at one another 
in happiness that they again are united. R. L. came to Columbia three weeks 
ago, and expects to leave next week to visit other relatives in North Carolina, 
before returning to Texas by way of Columbia so that he may continue his talks 
of old times with his older brother, and his brother's wife, who make their 
home with their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Summers.

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