Laura Ellen Jarrett McGlamery

Posted on by Carol Ann McCormick

26 October 1911 – 8 August 1994

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) has 15 specimens collected by Laura Jarrett.  All came to NCU as part of a  gift of several hundred specimens from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2018.

Laura Ellen Jarrett was born on 26 October 1911 to William Harrison Jarrett (1866-1947) and Sarah Dora Cherry Jarrett (1870-1963) in Hayesville, Clay County, North Carolina. Laura’s father was a farmer, and she had five siblings:  Guy England (1902-1993), Mary Elizabeth (1903-1976), George Cherry (1905-1973), Jessie Margaret (Knight) (1907-1985), and Oscar Neal (1909-2007). (1,2)

Laura Jarrett graduated with a major in Biology from the North Carolina College for Women (which became University of North Carolina at Greensboro) in 1933. (3)  It is most likely that she collected the herbarium specimens for classes while an undergraduate, as they date between 1931 and 1933.

She married Ralph Loftin McGlamery (1914-1986), a dairy farmer, and they lived in Clay County. “Laura, fondly known to her students as “Mrs. Mac,” [taught high] school for 30 years and [coached] basketball for 20 years.” (4)  Laura and Ralph had two daughters, Adora McGlamery Cloer (1939-1982), and Fannie McGlamery Watson.(4)

Laura Jarrett McGlamery died at age 82 and is buried in Oak Forest Cemetery in Hayesville, Clay County, North Carolina with her husband and youngest daughter.(1)

 

SOURCES

  1.  Find A Grave Memorial ID:  18899410 “Laura Ellen Jarrett McGlamery”. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18899410/laura-ellen-mcglamery accessed on 20 October 2020.
  2.  1920 census  Year: 1920; Census Place: Hayesville, Clay, North Carolina; Roll: T625_1290; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 56.  Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
  3. pers. comm., email from Erin Lawrimore (University Archivist & Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) to McCormick, 18 February, 2020.
  4.  Scroggs, Kate.  “Watson’s love for county as deep as her roots”  Clay County Progress, page A10, Thursday March 1, 2018.  http://archives.etypeservices.com/Clayprogress1/Magazine208466/Publication/Magazine208466.pdf accessed on 20 October 2020.