Arriving in Tulare in the mid 1923 originally from Oklahoma residing at 621 East Elm Avenue for years, Elijah was known as Peg Leg Vinson, he along with his brothers farmed the area around Tulare raising Cotton.Many recalled Mr. Vinson providing comfort on a hot day with favoried Ice Shaving which he provided from his stand located near the corner of P Street and Ash Avenue.
Elijah was laid to rest on March 2, 1953 at the age of Sixty-Eight (68)
Viola was laid to rest on June 1, 1972 at the age of Eighty-One (81)
Charles (Pink) & Sarah Vinson,
Pink (Charlie) Vinson Born in 1889 in Oklahoma, came to Tulare with his brother Carl in 1925. He recalled getting off the bus on South K Street wanting to get something to eat and being refused a meal. Mr. Vinson would tell his first dealing in Tulare during an interview in 1999 with the Tulare Advance Register. Expressing that they he was really hungry he was allowed to eat at the restaurant but told to eat in the rear. He later express that was the first he saw of the attitude towards the African Americans in the city, he would later realize that there was not many in the city. Pink recalled his first great adventure purchasing a brand new Model T car along with his brother Carl for $600.00 Pink would later the next year meet his soon to be wife Sarah in Fresno, the two would marry that same year. Sarah born in 1904, was raised in Canada from the age of Six until her Sixteenth birthday did not see much in the way of ill will, As both her brother and herself attended school while in Canada. She recalled the change once she was in the United States. The Vinson would soon be filled with pride as they purchased 80 acres of land, he recalled Tulare being nothing but fields and fields of cotton unpaved roads, the rural side of the town their property was located down what is now Blackstone and Bardsley where R & N Market sits today. The Vinson would enjoy much success in raising Cotton and Chickens, until the great depression, when as many the Vinson would lose all what they owned, working a long day for $ 2.00 they struggled as did most African Americans in the city. Once Pink recalled excepting chickens for payment when the employer had no money for their work as payment. In 1946 the Vinson Purchased a home on North California Street with a down payment of $15.00 the home sold for $ 2, 600.00 Pink & Sarah would remain in that home for Sixty Years, enjoying marriage for Sixty-Eight years until their passing away.
Pink Vinson was laid to rest in 1994
Sarah passing May 8, 1998 at the age of (94)
Story taken from Advance Regiter reported Susan Tucker
Carl Vinson Left & Johanna with Granddaughter Barbara Booker
Carl Vinson born in Moffet Oklahoma, in 1894 relocated along with his wife Johanna a Native American who was from Indian, Territory Oklahoma born on 19,1895 from Imperial Valley in 1925. The family joined Elijah who came to Tulare in 1923 and Pink who arrived with him in 1925. The first thing the brother Carl and Pink would do after arriving to Tulare was purchases a brand new Model T car. Both brothers would also invest in property taken up their hand in farming cotton and other items in the city before the great depression would cause most of the African Americans to lose their property. The family would then build their home at 950 South P Street where they would remain until their deaths. Daughter Flossy Pope recalls the early days of Tulare as not many African Americans resided in the city during the early days. Mrs. Pope now Eighty-one years old still remains in Tulare residing in her home since 1946 (58) years.
Carl was laid to rest November 1980 at the age of (86)
Johanna was laid to rest August 1989 at the age of (94)
Mr. George Wilson & Sallie Antwine Wilson
George Wilson originally From Atlanta, Georgia came to Tulare with his family in1925, Sallie Antwine, originally from Oklahoma had twelve children. The family would make their home at 607 South S. Street, in the heart of the new Lincoln Tract area. Lincoln School was a couple of years away from being completed, as Wilson Elementary School opened in 1924. Sarah S. Hester recalled growing up in Tulare attending the now closed Central School, which was located where the Tulare Public library sits today where most of the youth attended in Tulare. Mrs. Hester still resides in the city of Tulare along with her younger brother Robert Wilson. With most of the remaining living family have traveled on to Los Angeles and other parts of California all of them nearing their eighties.
His wife and nine children surveyed George Wilson at the time of his death in 1965.
He was laid to rest on April 9, 1965 at the age of (75) Seventy-Five
Sallie Antwine, was laid to rest on May 16, 1966 at the age of (73)
Sarah Hester still lives in the same home and property owned by her father. She recalls days attending Grammar School in Tulare, and later Tulare High
