Above photo, about 1920, Sumter County, S. C. Viewer's left to right:

Seated parents:
Elias Whilden Nettles, Sr.; Lucy Mellette Nettles.
Standing:
Eliza Ann Nettles; Louise Mellette Nettles; Elias Whilden Nettles, Jr.; Margaret Anna Nettles; Robert Mason Nettles.
Whilden, Jr. in other Sumter County pics:
(1) About 1938 @ Shaws Crossroads, HERE.
(2) About 1940 @ Shaws Crossroads, HERE.
(3) About 1955 @ Cain's Mill, HERE.

Additional bio on Whilden, Jr. from kin:

"Billy" Elias Whilden Nettles, III (son...EHS class of 1954, HERE): “Daddy went on to Clemson and left during the "Great Walk Out" after 11 months. The president put him in Agriculture, which he hated; he wanted to be an electrical engineer. The Clemson pres. told him, 'Nobody from Wedgefield was ever an electrical engineer; what they need are farmers'. Ironically, he took a job pushing a wheel barrel for the construction of the Lake Murray Dam [Dreher Shoals Dam] where the power house construction workers taught him the dangerous but much-better-paying electrical work (constant employment during the Great Depression, to include a year in Pennsylvania on the Safe Harbor Dam. Two Lake Murray life-long friendships happened, the first being Mr. John Dreher, who, like Daddy, was a fox hunter but also Chairman of the Lexington County school board and basically ran the county. The other was Donald Russell for whom Daddy would become his 'unofficial campaign manager and adviser' who was to become Governor of South Carolina. Had it not been for the association with "Mr. John", there would never have been a Dr. 'Bill' William Nettles Wessinger. Times were hard and $100.00 Daddy sent home from Pennsylvania--I think-- was the difference in his "baby" sister Eliza graduating from Limestone College. I have never witnessed a stronger love between an older brother and a youngest sister. 'I wouId have married 'Liza if she hadn't been my sister!' He married her best friend, Gwendolyn Chandler, my mother, who died from"blood Poisoning" in 1936 when I was 8 months old. He married Mary Ladson Boyle in 1939.

"However, when Aunt 'Liza finished college, there were no jobs. Daddy wrote 'Mr.John' and the reply was, 'If she is anything like you, she has got a job in Lexington County'. The most significant part of that story involving Mr. John was that he just happened to have a 'bachelor' nephew named James Bryson Wessinger. You can figure it out from here.

"In 1939 he became Sumter County's Chief Game warden. In 1945 he and his brother-in-law, Hugh M. McLaurin, Jr. started McLaurin-Nettles, Inc. We later bought out the McLaurin share, and Daddy ran it until 1985--as I remember. He would become Pres. of The National Farm Machinery Dealers Assoc., President of the National Fox hunters, Assoc., etc. His proudest involvement was serving on the Sumter County Higher Education Commission (the Board of what is now U.S.C.-Sumter). By sheer willpower and political influence, he stopped the turnover of the school to the Tech School. They named a building for him. Typical for him, when he was told of the naming, his reply was, 'I want to thank you twice, first for doing it and second for doing it before I died!' That was PURE Whilden Nettles! For twenty plus years, you did not get elected or appointed in Sumter County without his blessings and, as my late friend and his (Johnny Jackson) said, 'And he never took a dime.' He died at 82 on February 23, 1987--day after my birthday. The stories could go on for ever, but maybe this is a little insight to the man I called 'Daddy'."

Billy's son, a Citadel graduate, is "Bill" William Norman Nettles who was U. S. Attorney for the District of S. C., HERE.

Lucy Crumpton Gordon (niece): “Also I am thinking he may have finished high school in Wedgefield [1922] and did not go to Sumter for the 11th grade as his sisters did.” But, a memorial NOTE: A Wedgefield resident, Whilden went to the public schools in Sumter with the SHS class of 1923 but actually is present in a list of 6 Wedgefield high schoolers in May 1922 (3rd column, near bottom, HERE) & then freshman Clemson class in fall of 1923 (two-page listing of freshman class members, in 1924 TAPS, HERE). It is thought that he left Sumter High School after the 10th grade and grduated after the 11th grade (only 11 grades back then) at Wedgefield School.

"Bill" William Nettles Wessinger, M. D. (nephew):
"Walking the beach at Pawleys with him was a great experience. No one passed him, without Whilden's handshake and greeting being proffered. Rich or poor; young or old; he reached out to all.

"Walking with him allowed me the opportunity to meet so many folks. I was introduced to strangers thusly: 'I'm Whilden Nettles from Sumter, and this is my nephew Bill Nettles Wessinger from Columbia. He starts medical school in the fall.' Never mind that I was a graduating Citadel senior soon to be commissioned during wartime. It was more to him that I was his nephew & had been accepted to med school.

“I visited Uncle Whilden lying on what became his deathbed at Baptist Hosp., Columbia, S. C., transferred from Tuomey in Sumter. My mother [Eliza] and her sister (Aunt Louise) visited the next day. He suddenly died, as they left the room. My mother, usually very composed, was sobbing at his loss. Ahead of his time, Whilden worked hard, and led the effort to elect Thomasine Grayson Mason to the S.C. Senate.” [from Judge Mason's obituary: "She was the second woman to serve in the South Carolina Senate, and on February 22, 1967, she was called to preside over a session of the Senate becoming the first woman to preside in that body."]

Tucker Whilden Nettles (nephew): “He was my uncle, and I am named for him as is my son Whilden. Uncle Whilden was President of the National Fox Hunter Association [two terms in the 1960s] & a Board member for 30 years.  He was my mother's brother, and one of my heroes in life. They grew up in an unpretentious house in Wedgefield; but they had a great sense of values, to include religious devotion, family, and education. All five children were successful in life. Whilden always thought of the little guy, and all the while he was advising the powerful. Strom Thurmond, and many others sought his counsel.”

Marriage of Mary Pringle Boyle & Elias Whilden Nettles in Charleston News and Courier
Sunday, Jul 02, 1939, Charleston, SC p22 Whilden SHS 1922 but did 11th grade at Wedgefield school & their class of 1922; entered Clemson frosh class 5 Sept. 1923