Wylanta Duke Strayhorn Aycock Holt papers, 1889-1980
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Summary
- Creator:
- Duke, Wylanta, 1881-1980
- Abstract:
- Wylanta Duke Strayhorn Aycock Holt (née Rochelle, 1881-1980) was the daughter of Durham merchant Leander Sydney and Jeanette Stanley Rochelle. She was the fourth and final wife of Brodie L. Duke and a Durham landowner in her own right. The Wylanta Duke Strayhorn Aycock Holt Papers date from 1889 to 1980 and chronicle the personal life of Wylanta as well as the business and financial transactions which she conducted as a prominent landowner in Durham. Materials include correspondence, photographs, and financial records.
- Extent:
- 3.4 Linear Feet (2550 items)
- Language:
- Material in English
- Collection ID:
- RL.00335
Background
- Scope and content:
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The Wylanta Duke Strayhorn Aycock Holt papers date from 1889 to 1980, with the bulk of the materials from the 1920s and 1930s. The collection chronicles Wylanta's familial and social life as well as her business dealings.
The Correspondence Series contains primarily incoming correspondence from Wylanta's sister, Hettie, nieces and nephews, and husbands as well as letters to and from a wide range of friends and Durham citizens. It contains a number of holiday greeting and sympathy cards, but does not contain any correspondence explicitly addressed to Brodie L. Duke.
The Clippings Series includes excerpts from newspaper columns and articles which Wylanta collected throughout her life. These clippings include the regular opinion column written by Wylanta's brother, Zapheus A. Rochelle, notes from the society section chronicling Wylanta and others' visits and travels, and coverage of Wylanta and Stayhorn's 1923 motor vehicle accident in Nice, France, as well as other political and social subjects.
The Financial Records Series encompasses deposit slips, receipts, dividend notices, ledgers, and correspondence evidencing Wylanta's business transactions. The series also contains information about her property ownership in the city of Durham.
The Miscellaneous Series contains assorted handwritten notes and printed commercial images.
The Photographs Series includes a number of portraits of Wylanta, her husbands and her family as well as numerous images of as-yet unidentified individuals. The materials include images of Wylanta in her wedding gowns, snapshots, and portraits. There are also a handful of images of places and an early x-ray of Wylanta's arm following an accident.
- Biographical / historical:
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Wylanta Rochelle was likely born in 1881, although her birthdate is sometimes listed as 1882 or 1883, to her parents: Durham merchant Sydney Leander Rochelle and his wife, Jeanette Rochelle. On 11 June 1910, Wylanta, then 19 years old, married the 63-year old Brodie L. Duke (1846-1919), becoming his fourth and final wife. Duke and Rochelle were married in Camden, N.J. by Justice of the Peace Frank Garrison only one day after a Presbyterian minister in Washington D.C. refused to marry the couple due to Duke's two previous divorces.
Duke died on 2 February 1919 at the age of 73, and Wylanta continued to manage the couple's property affairs and use his surname until she married her second husband, Isaac Richardson Strayhorn (1889-1923), an attorney from Hillsboro with an office at 205 E. Main St., likely in 1920. On 3 September 1923, Strayhorn died in Nice, France from injuries inflicted by a motor vehicle accident in which Wylanta and others were also injured in late August of that year.
By August 1930, Wylanta had married Connor Woodward Aycock (1893-1941), the son of former North Carolina governor (1901-1905), Charles Brantley Aycock. Connor passed away on 12 October 1941, and Wylanta married her fourth husband, 39-year old Perry Clayton Eldridge (1903-1956), a former teacher and a sales repesentative for Standard Oil, one year later, in 1942. The marriage was short-lived, and Wylanta and Eldridge divorced one year later, in 1943.
On 22 October 1949, Wylanta married her fifth and final husband, Thomas Michael Holt. The couple divorced in 1954. Wylanta died in 1980 at the age of 99, using the name Wylanta Rochelle Holt on her tombstone. It is unclear how many children, if any, Wylanta had.
Wylanta, through both her family and her husbands, owned a number of properties in Durham, many of them located on North Magnum Street, which she frequently rented.
- Acquisition information:
- The Wylanta Duke Strayhorn Aycock Holt Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a purchase in 2013.
- Processing information:
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Processed by Elisabeth Narkin; Meghan Lyon, December 2013
Encoded by Elisabeth Narkin; Meghan Lyon, December 2013
Accession(s) described in this collection guide: 2014-0020
Materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition.
- Physical location:
- For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
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- Preferred citation:
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[Identification of item], Wylanta Duke Holt Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.