George Ferrell
George Roland Ferrell was born in South Carolina on Christmas Day, 25 December 1910. Through most of his life he went by his middle name, Roland. That is the name on his marriage licence and in the censuses, and George appears again only on his gravestone and in his children's obituaries.
His parents were George Washington Ferrell, a farmer and later a grocer, and Kate Estelle Revels, both born in Chester County. In January 1920 Roland was nine and living with his mother in Chester, the seat of Chester County in the South Carolina upcountry, with his sisters Virgie and Margaret and his brother Sammie. He had three years of schooling.
On 23 June 1936 Roland went before J. H. Yarborough, the county's Judge of Probate, for a licence to marry Eva Mae Robbins. Both of them were of Chester. He gave his age as 25. She gave hers as 18, though she had been born in January 1921 and was fifteen. Four days later, on 27 June 1936, Rev. Harry E. Crump married them at Chester. Roland signed the certificate "Roland Ferrell" and Eva signed "Eva Mae Robbins-Ferrell".
In April 1940 the couple were living in Chester Township just outside the city, south of State Road 9, in the enumeration district that took in part of the Baldwin and Aragon cotton mills. Roland was 29 and Eva 19. He owned their house, which the census taker valued at $350, and he worked as a painter of buildings. In 1939 he had found 26 weeks of work and earned $442. His parents lived in the very next house, with five of his brothers and sisters. Their first son, George Roland Jr., was born there in February 1941.
Three more children followed: James Edward in April 1943, a daughter, Volenious, in 1945, and Harvey E. about 1946. In April 1950 the family of six was still in Chester Township. Roland, 39, was working as a house painter in the building trade.
Roland lived to 94. He died at Chester on 9 May 2005 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery there under a flat marker headed "Father". Eva outlived him by six years and lies beside him under a matching stone headed "Mother".
Their children scattered only a little. George Jr. died at Myrtle Beach in 2010 and James Edward, who served in the Air Force as a munitions supply specialist, at Conway in 2025; both are buried at Hillcrest Cemetery. Volenious, known as "Cooter", married Jerry D. King and died in 2013; her obituary called her "the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. George R. and Eva May Robbins Ferrell". Harvey, known as "Rooster", stayed in Chester.
He stayed close to his parents to the end of their lives. When his mother died at the Chester County Hospital in March 1955, Roland gave the details for her death certificate. When his father died there in July 1960, he did the same.
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "George Ferrell (1910-2005)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/george-ferrell-1910-2005-c1012c.