Magee, Wilkie Flanders
Biography
Wilkie Flanders Magee, Sr., had turned seventeen only twelve days before LDS missionary Ernest Koepsel, a German born immigrant, baptized him. Elder John W. Gregory from Mapleton, Idaho then confirmed him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Flanders, as he was called, was the oldest of eight Magee children and was baptized in a creek near Tylertown, Mississippi, along with his sisters Freda and Vander and his brother Percy. His mother Ardella and father Samuel had already joined Mormonism. [1]
By the time Flanders registered for the draft in 1917, he had married Mollie Sibley and was working as a farmer in Lexie. The draft board registrar described Flanders as tall with a medium build and as having black hair and black eyes. [2] In 1920 Flanders lived in census bureau beat 3 of Walthall County, Mississippi and worked as a laborer at a sawmill. He and Mollie were the parents of three children: Wilkie Flanders, Jr., was born 28 October 1917; Luther was born in June 1920; and Margarette on 19 September 1922. Sometime between Margarette’s birth and the 1930 census, Flanders and Mollie died. Ardella Bickham Magee, Flander’s mother who was by then a widow, raised her three grandchildren, all of whom were baptized in February 1936 while under Ardella's guardianship. [3]
By W. Paul Reeve
Primary Sources
Beaulieu, Freda Lucretia Magee. Address, 1982 January 16. MS 6938. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection. CR 375 8, box 4256, folder 1, images 246 and 451. Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection. CR 375 8, box 4257, folder 1, image 434. Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Magee, Flanders. United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Lexie Precinct, Mississippi. Washington D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Family History Library, microfilm 1,683,990. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
United States Census, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940. Pike County and Walthall County, Mississippi.
[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, CR 375 8, box 4256, folder 1, image 246 and 451, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; United States Census, 1910, Pike County, Mississippi; Freda Lucretia Magee Beaulieu, address, 1982 January 16, p. 2, MS 6938, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Ernest Koepsel, Early Mormon Missionaries database, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John W. Gregory, Early Mormon Missionaries database, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
[2] Flanders Magee, United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Lexie Precinct, Mississippi (Washington D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration), Family History Library, microfilm 1,683,990. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[3] United States, Census, 1920, 1930, 1940, Tylertown, Walthall County, Mississippi; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection. CR 375 8, box 4257, folder 1, image 434, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Documents
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