He was the oldest son of William Durham Spruill and Frances A. Perry. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1900, and spent most of the next 25 years ministering to Baptist churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. During World War I, he served as Chaplin at Camp Hancock, Georgia. By 1925, however his voice was giving out. He settled in Rocky Mount, retired from the ministry, and became a grocer. As proprietor of the Red Star Grocery at 112 W. Thomas Street in Williford Town, he kept long hours, often sleeping at the store. Part of the reason he did so was security..... He'd lost heavily when the states' s largest bank, North Carolina Bank & Trust, had failed a few years earlier, and kept his lie savings in the small safe in the store. George lived at 316 Howell Street.....with his wife of 32 years, Lillie Olivia Moore, their daughter, Brownie, her husband, John Alonza Ellen, and their 3 year old daughter, Olivia.......Brownie sometimes helped at the store, and little Olivia often visited her Grandy there. On a quite Sunday evening in late July, 1934, John Ellen took his father-in-law back to the store for the night. As he left, John could hear him moving around in the back, getting ready for bed. Early the next morning, Olivia looked up to see her papa standing in her bedroom doorway. In a soft, somber voice he said "Gandy's dead". Sometime in the early morning hours the night before, some one had killed Geroge Spruill for his savings.....................................Newsletter of the Tar River Connections Genealogical Society, THE CONNECTOR, 2014 Vol. 18, Issue 2
He was the oldest son of William Durham Spruill and Frances A. Perry. He graduated from Wake Forest College in 1900, and spent most of the next 25 years ministering to Baptist churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. During World War I, he served as Chaplin at Camp Hancock, Georgia. By 1925, however his voice was giving out. He settled in Rocky Mount, retired from the ministry, and became a grocer. As proprietor of the Red Star Grocery at 112 W. Thomas Street in Williford Town, he kept long hours, often sleeping at the store. Part of the reason he did so was security..... He'd lost heavily when the states' s largest bank, North Carolina Bank & Trust, had failed a few years earlier, and kept his lie savings in the small safe in the store. George lived at 316 Howell Street.....with his wife of 32 years, Lillie Olivia Moore, their daughter, Brownie, her husband, John Alonza Ellen, and their 3 year old daughter, Olivia.......Brownie sometimes helped at the store, and little Olivia often visited her Grandy there. On a quite Sunday evening in late July, 1934, John Ellen took his father-in-law back to the store for the night. As he left, John could hear him moving around in the back, getting ready for bed. Early the next morning, Olivia looked up to see her papa standing in her bedroom doorway. In a soft, somber voice he said "Gandy's dead". Sometime in the early morning hours the night before, some one had killed Geroge Spruill for his savings.....................................Newsletter of the Tar River Connections Genealogical Society, THE CONNECTOR, 2014 Vol. 18, Issue 2
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