9 – Here's My Side of the Story

CHAPTER NINE

REV. WILLIAM THOMAS VAUGHN

Updated 13 December 2019 by author Lawrence Eugene Vaughn Jr

Reverend William Thomas Vaughn
Starting Family Life
Grocery to Mercantile
Lucien B Price
L. B. Price Mercantile Company
L.B. Price Biography
Grandfather’s Bible
Death Certificate
Newspaper Clippings
Grave Marker
Funeral Album
Grandview Cemetery Diagram

Reverend William Thomas and Beulah Vaughn – Date and Location Unknown

Post World War I

Starting Family Life

When William Thomas Vaughn was discharged from the army following World War One, he now had a family to care for. His daughter, Helen Ruth, had been born on December 6, 1918, while he was in France. He joined his family in Marion, Illinois, at her parents home, but soon, traveled to Carterville to visit with his brother Virgil, and sister Ruth. While there, he was able to secure a position as a coal mine “loader” in a Carterville area coal mine.

The 1920 U.S. Census indicates that they were living in a rented home at 217 McNeil Street, in Carterville on the 13th of January, 1920. This must have been the three room house that Beulah recalled later in her writings.

His occupation is listed as Coal Miner – Loader, and confirms that his father’s and mother’s birthplaces are Illinois. It also lists that he and Beulah are able to speak English, and can read and write.

Eventually, Bill was able to get his position as a grocery clerk reinstated at the Madison Coal Corporation’s company store #9, but we have no record of when that took place, or how long he had to struggle in the coal mines before being reinstated.

Note: Beulah’s name is misspelled in this census report.

Grocery to Mercantile

In 1930, Bill and family were living in Marion, Illinois, and he was employed as a “collector” for a mercantile company. We don’t know which mercantile company he worked for, however, there was an L.B. Price Mercantile listed among the merchants, and we know that in later years he managed troubled stores for them. Many businesses at that time would sell items to customers “on time,” an early form of credit. The business would then send an employee around to customer’s homes to collect the monthly fee on all the accounts. This was still a common practice for insurance companies in the 1960s.

By 1935 the family had moved to Marshall, Missouri, and in 1940 was listed in the census as manager of a “house furnishing installment co.” It is this census that shows him living in Marshall in 1935.

Lucien B Price

For many years W.T. Vaughn worked for the L.B. Price Mercantile Company, and was a very effective manager. He was moved to cities that had an underperforming store to rebuild the business and make the store profitable. His last L.B. Price storefront was on Market Street in Hannibal, Missouri. He left that business to enter full time ministry.

His brother, John Vaughn, also worked for L.B. Price, and he too, was moved from town to town to boost local sales. He eventually wound up in St. Louis, Missouri, where he directed the sales efforts of all the stores in the St. Louis territory.

Article from the Kansas City Star newspaper. Date unknown:

KANSAS CITY ON THE EVE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:

THE L. B. PRICE MERCANTILE COMPANY.

An interesting fact that has been conspicuously prominent in the gathering of the material for this review of the manufactures, commercial and general industry of Kansas City on the eve of the Twentieth Century, and one which is as gratifying as it is interesting, is the presence here of so many large concerns, which have, from moderate beginnings, grown and expanded from year to year, ever increasing the receipts of their operations, thus furnishing a most practical testimonial to the substantial solidity, permanent character and ever-increasing prosperity of our community as a whole.

A conspicuous example and illustration of the foregoing facts, in an individual sense, is presented in the development of the great business house operated by the L. B. Price Mercantile Co., whose main offices and store rooms are located at 1312 and 1314 McGee street. They are importers and jobbers in household specialties, and do business in all the principal cities and towns in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Ohio. They employ a force of more than 400 people.

The officers of the company, who are gentlemen of the highest standing in this community, are as follows: L. B. Price, president and treasurer; W. F. Crall, vice-president, who is a resident of Norfolk, Va.; and F. B. Robinson, secretary. These gentlemen have all been emphatically the architects of their own fortunes and the great business which they control and direct shows conclusively that they have builded wisely and well. Their enterprise and progressiveness in business is fully equalled by their public spirit as private citizens, and they enjoy in the highest degree the esteem of the entire community.

L.B. Price Biography

Above: William Thomas and John L Vaughn, brothers. Date unknown

WT Vaughn and VBS workers, Antioch Church 1948.jpg

Reverend W.T. Vaughn and VBS Teachers, Antioch Church, 1948. Location unknown. The Pastor’s Wife, Beulah, is at far right in the photo above.

Grandfather’s Bible

In later years I received one of Grandfather’s bibles with sermon notes and notations in it. It had been recovered from the abandoned Charlotte NC home of my grandmother after her death. The house had been vandalized and left open to the elements for some time. The bible was in very poor condition, with the binding nearly destroyed due to exposure to the weather.

My cousin, Reverend Phillip Vaughn, son of my uncle, Reverend Virgil Lee Vaughn, had recovered its remains and gave it to my cousin Sharon Lee Sampson, daughter of Helen Ruth Vaughn Sampson. Decades later, Sharon passed it on to me, and I digitized what I could and then gave the bible to my sister, Pamela Sue Vaughn Watkins for her to effect as much of a rescue as possible.

It appears that Beulah added some notations, below, after W.T.’s death. Some handwriting appears to be William Albert Vaughn’s, in an attempt to fill in some of the missing info