Scope and Content Note
The papers of the Nelson W. Jordan family span the years circa 1864-2003, with the bulk of the material focused on the period 1881-1949. The papers include photographs, correspondence, family and personal Bibles, vital records, diplomas, posters, books, genealogical material, and printed matter. The largest grouping in the papers is the family members file, which documents clergyman Nelson W. Jordan and his wife Carrie Jordan, their ten children (born 1881-1900), and four of their grandchildren. Nelson W. Jordan served with the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. Carrie Jordan was an active Baptist churchwoman.
The first- and secondborn of Nelson's daughters, Julia D. Jordan (1881-1942) and D. Mozella Jordan (1882-1971) were both teachers in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Both of them taught Vernon Johns, later a pastor, scholar, and pioneering civil rights activist. Johns's correspondence with his former teacher Julia Jordan during her last illness in 1942 is part of the papers. She married G. H. (General Henry) Womack (1873-1911) in 1908. He was a domestic servant and professional lecturer on such topics as "intemperance" and "businessmen of the race," and he is well-documented in correspondence with Julia and others, and in miscellany, speeches, and writings. D. Mozella Jordan married Peter W. Price, a clergyman, and went on to become a longtime supervisor of schools in Appomattox County, Virginia, a tenure that included the desegregation of African American and white schools. With her husband she started Camp Winonah, a summer camp for children in Appomattox County.
Two of Nelson W. Jordan's sons, Nelson R. Jordan (1889-1958) and Walker Harrison Jordan (1890-1951), served with the 351st Field Artillery Regiment, 92nd Division in France during World War I. Walker wrote about the regiment's war service in his book With Old Eph in the Army, published in 1919. Nelson R. Jordan was a musician during his military service and in civilian life pastor of three Baptist churches in central Virginia, including fifteen years at First Baptist Church in Bedford where he organized a youth orchestra. Walker was a regimental clerk and in civilian life contracted domestic staff for resorts and wealthy clients' summer homes.
The elder Nelson's youngest child, Elizabeth Hayes Jordan (1900-1988) taught high school in Lynchburg, Virginia. for many years. She was known in the Jordan family for her creatively compiled photo albums. Numerous photographs, professionally produced images and snapshots spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are a prominent feature of the family members file. Additional images in the photographs file cover the same time span.
Nelson W. and Carrie's most documented grandchild in these papers is Ruth Turner (1920-1991), daughter of Anna Viola Jordan (1886-1949), who moved from Virginia to her husband's hometown, Jersey City, New Jersey. Turner, a government worker and telephone company supervisor, created files documenting high school in Jersey City and student life at Saint Paul's College, Lawrenceville, Virginia, during the 1930s. She also compiled a scrapbook with life at Saint Paul's College and nightlife in New York and New Jersey as the major themes.