Larry Wilson Hayer (1938 - 2021)

Born 19 Feb 1938 in Mooresville, Iredell, North Carolina

Ancestors

Son of Andy Wilson Hayer and Mary Janet (Towell) Hayer

Husband of Gay Nell (Clayton) Hayer — married 10 Sep 1960 in Midway Methodist Church, Kannapolis, North Carolina

Died 8 Sep 2021 at age 83 in Concord, Cabarrus, North Carolina, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Daphne Hayer [send private message]

Larry Hayer was a wonderful member of our WikiTree community who has passed away. Larry Hayer made many contributions and will be missed.

Biography

Birth

19 FEB 1938 Mooresville, Iredell, North Carolina^[1] Lowrance Memorial Hospital, Dr Wrenn attending.

Baptism

APR 1948 Midway Methodist Church, Kannapolis, North Carolina

Occupation

Bureaucrat, Computer Technician

Note

Note: Hugh Hair, his sister Rachel and his brother Thomas were the first of their family to live in Cabarrus County. Their parents, Daniel and Esther Robeson Hair moved from Hanover County Pennsylvania to Rowan after their marriage in 1756. Their farm was made part of Iredell County in 1788. There are records of ten children surviving to adulthood.

The three who went south to Cabarrus all changed the spelling of their surname to HAYR. No reason has surfaced for this change, since the family remaining in Iredell retained the original spelling for several generations until HAIRE became popular for some branches of the family.

Hugh Hayr married Mary Carrigan in 1795 and bought land in Cabarrus County. Thomas Hayr married Mary's sister Martha about 1800. Rachel Hayr married James Bradford about the same time and settled out near Poplar Tent Church.

Hugh and Mary had five children that we know of and all continued to keep the same surname spelling as their father. The youngest child, William, married Margaret Rebecca Carrigan, his first cousin, once removed. They had three children that we know of, William Joseph, Hugh Franklin and James Andrew.

James Andrew Hayr was less than two years old when was left a complete orphan. William died in 1852 and Rebecca in 1853. Rebecca's Uncle, Robert Adams Carrigan, took in the toddler while a cousin in South Carolina assumed responsibility for the oldest child, Joseph William. The middle son, Hugh, is assumed to have died before his parents. Robert Carrigan was also William Hayr's first cousin, once removed.

Andy grew up in the Carrigan household, and was listed in the 1860 census as a cousin. When Robert died in 1864 he left some personal property to his "relative" Andrew. Robert's son William Franklin Carrigan assumed responsibility for Andy and became known as "Uncle Frankie". Franklin's sister, Jane Pickens Carrigan had married Hugh Henderson of Huntersville over in Mecklenburg County and brought her three children to visit her childhood home.

Erixley Jane Henderson, the middle child of Hugh and Jane, married James Andrew December 16, 1884 in Huntersville. Elwin Lee Hayr, my grandfather was their oldest child. He was left an orphan when Andy died in 1891.

Elwin grew up and married a neighborhood girl, Katherine Jane Johnson, who was absolutely no kin to him. My father, Andy Wilson, was the sixth of their 12 children. The family story is that the teachers at Gilwood School told Elwin's older children that their name was spelled wrong, and everybody knew that it was supposed to be HAYER. The children were punished for using "Hayr". Eventually, Elwin, Katie and all the children used the revised spelling. "Hayer" is teutonic, not celtic and is incorrect for this family. There is another Hayer family in Cabarrus County, but they are completely unrelated.

On June 13, 1936, in York, South Carolina, Mary Janet Towell of Mooresville and Andy Wilson Hayer were wed. The marriage lasted nearly 60 years until he died in 1995. They had five children, one boy and four girls. I am the boy, born February 19, 1938 in Mooresville, back in Iredell County.

I grew up in Cabarrus County, attending Winecoff School for 12 years. After high school I went off to Chapel Hill where I earned a B.S. in Industrial Relations in 1959. The following year Gay Nell Clayton married me. During the next 15 years we moved nine times, then stayed in Chester, Virginia for 14 years. My career as a federal civil servant took us all over the southeast. Our first child was born in Kentucky, the second in North Carolina and the youngest in Georgia. Since retirement we have lived in Kannapolis.

That's the big picture. Some details are in order. My first memories are of living in the little house my parents built on the southeast corner of the Hayer farm. I remember playing with my cousins Jerry Moore, Bill Wentz, Cecil Wentz and Lane Wentz. I remember my Uncle Tom Towell visiting while a well was being dug just behind the house. I remember when we used kerosene lamps before the electricity was put in. I don't remember when we moved to Kannapolis the first time, but I do remember living in Leland, North Carolina when Daddy was working in the ship yard. I was five years old. While we were living there, Mother taught me to write my name. My penmanship has not improved any since day one.

In late fall 1943 we moved back to Kannapolis, to a house off Jackson Park Road. I remember playing with the landlord's son who was also named Larry. Sometime before school started in August 1944 we were living at 110 Lowrance Avenue (Route 3 Box 27) with Daddy's Aunt Ola Hayer. Later on the Lowrance Avenue designation was dropped and the address became 114 Triece Street.

Our next door neighbors had a daughter that was attending the same school that I would be going to. She was a Senior! So on the first day of school Dot Alwran stood with me at the bus stop, helped me on the bus and took me to my First Grade room at Winecoff School. I saw her Sundays at church until she entered a nursing home in 2008.

Winecoff was my school for twelve years. While there I learned to appreciate reading and writing but arithmetic was never my favorite. Not everyone in my neighborhood went to Winecoff. We lived at the upper end of the school district and kids went to whichever school they wanted to. Some to Winecoff, some to city schools. Two of my playmates were Dicky Austin and Austin Lee who later married my sister Margaret. Other playmates were Donny Anderson, Harry Threatt, Johnny Lipe and his sister Peggy; the Hollar kids, Tommy Jordan and his sister Frances; and about a dozen others.

Just after I started fifth grade was the event that changed my life and affected everyone else in the family. I was struck by a car on Rogers Lake Road about two blocks from home. The injury resulted in my right leg being amputated above the knee. Before that event no one ever mentioned higher education. After event that I was told that I had to graduate from high school and go to college. The reason was that no one in my condition could work; therefore I had to get an education so I didn't have to work.

In the Spring of 1949 I joined The Band. Mr. Webster was the bandmaster. Lester Fisher, Foy Biggers, Barbara Edsel, Joe Edgison, Timothy Brooks and about twenty others were in that beginning class. I played trombone for the next seven years, but never seriously. Band trips have given me some of my fondest memories of high school. School was fun. In my Junior year one of my teachers persuaded me to buckle down and get serious about grades if I wanted to go to college. I buckled down. The first semester of my Senior year I was inducted into Beta Club. This was my highest scholastic honor. With the Beta Club membership, a respectable SAT score and a high recommendation from my English teacher, I was accepted at Carolina.

There was a little money left from the settlement of a suit against the driver of the car that hit me, a little money from North Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation, a little money from home and a little from part-time work. All of it added up to enough to get through Carolina in three years. I didn't distinguish myself academically, but I did learn how to do a few things, one of the most satisfying being photography.

After graduation in August 1959 I accepted a position in quality control at one of Cabarrus County's fastest assembly lines. I was the bottled drink inspector at Sundrop Bottling Company. I was paid $1.25 per hour and sometimes worked 12 hour days. In November I went to work at Sears in Charlotte for $1.50 per hour and six percent commission selling cameras and office supplies. In January I accepted a job as Employment Interviewer at the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina in Gastonia for the princely sum of $3,700 per annum.

Gay Nell Clayton and I were wed 10 September, 1960 in Kannapolis at Midway Church where we were both members. Our first home was in Gastonia. Gay was working for J.P. Stevens Corp. in Charlotte. In November 1960 I went to work as a Claims Representative for the Social Security Administration in Charlotte. In February 1961, after basic training, we moved to Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky. Gay worked for Welgo Traders Department Store just up the block from the Social Security Office. Daphne Laurel was born in Lexington, 10 April, 1962. While in Lexington we became active in the First Christian Church, though not becoming members. I taught Sunday School and Gay sang in the choir.

We moved to Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee in July 1963, just across the state line from the Bristol, Virginia Social Security Office where I worked. While there, I became a member of the Moose Lodge and started a Boy Scout Troop sponsored by the Lodge. I was Scoutmaster for a year until I could get someone knowledgeable to take over. Just down the road from where we lived was Weaver Union Church, Baptist one Sunday and Methodist the next. I taught Sunday School there and Gay sang in the choir.

In October, 1965, when I was faced with a choice of going to a new office in Norton, Virginia or to Gastonia, North Carolina, I chose to work in Gastonia. Clayton Alexander was born 29 November 1965 in Kings Mountain, Cleveland County, North Carolina (Gay's obstetrician had offices in Shelby, and agreed to meet her half-way). I became a member of Jaycees in Gastonia and chaired several projects. We bought a new house and moved in before settlement, which was due in June, 1987.

I was promoted to Field Representative in May, 1967 and was transferred to Talladega, Alabama. The Talladega Motor Speedway was started that year. I joined Toastmasters that year and won a statewide speech contest. We became members of First Methodist Church in Talledega, Gay singing in the choir and I taught Sunday School.

A subsequent promotion to Operations Supervisor in the downtown Atlanta office took the family to Decatur, Dekalb County, Georgia in March 1968. Frances Gay was born there 20 November, 1968. While there, I continued with Toastmasters, winning several regional speech contests.

A promotion to Training Specialist in Social Security's Central Office took the family to Baltimore, Maryland in the summer of 1971. I went up in June and the rest of the family stayed in Kannapolis with relatives until a house became available in late August. While in Baltimore I traveled to various sites to inspect how the training courses I wrote were being taught. When SSI became law, I transferred to another branch in Central Office. An offer for work back in "the field" took the family to Chester, Chesterfield County, Virginia in the summer of 1975. Again I went ahead, reporting for work as Assistant District Manager in Petersburg on Memorial Day. Everyone else came down in August.

All three of our children graduated from Thomas Dale High School in Chester, Virginia. Daphne and then Clayton went to Carolina. Daphne graduated in 1984 with a B.A. degree in Political Science. She later obtained a Master of Library Science from the same institution. Clayton finished in 1987 with a B.S. in Industrial Relations. Frances enrolled at Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia in the fall of 1986. She has a BA in Theatre Arts. Gay first and then I became members of Ivy Memorial UMC in Colonial Heights. She sang in the choir, I taught Sunday School, was also Church Treasurer and Chair of the Pastor Parish Relations committee.

I retired from SSA on 2 September, 1989 and we returned to our roots in Kannapolis. Gay took a position as Census Enumerator and I started selling computers for PC Help in Concord and teaching Genealogy at Rowan Cabarrus Community College in Salisbury. We both became active members of The Genealogical Society of Rowan County. In July, 1990 we moved to the Tanglewood subdivision on the Rowan side of town. Both of us became active members of Midway United Methodist Church. Gay's mother sold her house and moved in with us. She lived with us until her death in November 2000.

Gay sings in the Midway choir, plays handbells and is church librarian. She is also active in two other singing groups and another handbell choir. I helped keep the church computers going, edit the newsletter and am president of my Sunday School class.

In 1992 sister Cathy and I bought PC Help from Paul Garatt. We operated the business until November 1994 when it was sold it to Michael Heath, one of our employees. I retired again. Currently, Telsid, Inc ocasionally employs me as a computer technician. Afternoons I work as History Librarian at the Kannapolis Branch Library.

I was a member of the Steering Committee that set up the first constitution and by-laws for Cabarrus Genealogy Society in 1993 and was elected second vice-president of the new society. Since then I have remained active as a researcher, writer and journal editor. I have had eight books that I helped with published by the Genealogical Society of Rowan County and helped get books published by Cabarrus Genealogical Society. With sister Carolyn I am working on books for three family lines. Family is important to me, not only those long dead that I research, but those still around. In 1996 I attended a meeting that resulted in my being chosen as chairman of the Cabarrus Heritage Book Committee. In 1997 I became general editor of the "Heritage Of Cabarrus County," which was published in 1998. The genealogy hobby led to my being hired as history librarian in the Kannapolis Branch Library in 2001.

Frances, our youngest, was the first to marry. Mark Caton was the lucky guy. Clayton married Dawn Laws in 1995, just before turning thirty They live in Cary, North Carolina. Their daughter Sophia Grace Hayer was born 1 January 2005 and daughter Olivia Hope was born 11 May 2007. Each of our children have written their own biographies.

Sources

• WikiTree profile Hayer-5 created through the import of HAYER.GED on May 29, 2011 by Larry Hayer. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Larry and others.
• Larry's obituary on Legacy.com

1. ↑ Source: #S1