Papers of Peter Hillsman Taylor (1908-1995, undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted American short story writer, novelist, biographer, and playwright, who specialized in subjects related to the Upper South, including manuscript materials and correspondence, especially his World War II letters to his wife, Eleanor Ross Taylor; proofs of published materials; loose manuscripts from the Stuart Wright Book Collection; and oversized materials, by or about Peter Hillsman Taylor, Madison Smartt Bell, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, and others, in English and French language.
This collection (1884, 1908-2005) includes the papers of Helen Keel Peel (who died in 2005 at the age of 88) and her husband James Woolard Peel (who died in 1986), of Everetts in Martin County, North Carolina. Included in the collection are a diary (1934-1937); photographs; typescripts related to Helen Peel's historical research about Everetts and Martin County; correspondence, scrapbook, and autograph books related to her public school years and her 1933-1934 time at Louisburg College; scrapbooks covering the time span of ca. 1956-1994; and Bible (1836) records, especially births, for the years 1808-1851 for members of the Peel, Woolard, Ward, Martin and Barnhill families of Martin County. Also included are report cards, transcripts, and correspondence related to James Peel's public schooling and time (1931-1935) at N.C. State University; U.S. Army service-related materials for his time in the Reserves (1936) and World War II (1942-1945); memorabilia related to his membership in the Order of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; Martin County deeds and plats (1884-1972); account books (1908-1944); and remodeling plans (2000-2005) by Dr. Jesse R. Peel for his parents' house. deeds for various tracts of land in Everetts and elsewhere in Martin County, N.C., and papers (plat maps, correspondence, financial papers) that document involvement with Timberlands Unlimited, Inc., of Windsor, N.C.
Papers (ca. 1890-2008, undated) of Vice Admiral Robert Lee Ghormley, a member of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1906, including correspondence, orders, diaries, memoirs, photographic prints and negatives, certificates and commissions, legal papers, printed forms, ephemera, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, maps, museum objects, broadsides and posters and publications related to his education, family and personal life, in Tacoma, Washington, Moscow, Idaho, and Washington, D.C.; his naval career; his life in retirement, 1946-1958; and also including genealogical and historical essays compiled by his son, Commander Robert Lee Ghormley, Jr. (U.S. Navy ret.). Vice Admiral Ghormley served in China, Nicaragua, World War I, and in Haiti. Between the world wars he had several appointments and also served as commander of the destroyer USS Sands and the battleship USS Nevada. During World War II, he saw service as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Special Naval Observer in Europe, August 1940-April 1942; as Commander, South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force, and the battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands, April-October 1942; as Commander of the Fourteenth Naval District and the Hawaiian Sea Frontier, 1943-1944; and as Commander of United States Naval Forces in Europe, 1944-1945.