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CAREY (CORA E. WATSON) PAPERS


Biography/History:

In the 1870s, Cora E. Watson Carey was an associate editor of the New Orleans Times Democrat and was responsible for editing the children's and women's pages and writing a society column. She was born Cora E. White in Fayette, Jefferson County, Mississippi, in June of 1843. After the death of her mother, Cora E. White was adopted by Ann Harris, an aunt from Somerville, Tennessee. Cora E. Harris attended a female academy in the mid-1850s.

Cora E. Harris married Will Watson of Holly Springs, Marshall County, Mississippi. In 1861, she moved in with her husbands parents, Judge and Mrs. J. W. Watson, after he was killed in the Civil War. Cora E. Watson assisted in running a female academy that the Watsons opened in their home after the war. Mississippi writer Katherine Sherwood Bonner was a student at the academy, and the two young women began a friendship that would last until Bonner's death in 1883.

Cora E. Watson married Samuel E. Carey in 1869. He was general manager and later president of the Mississippi Central Railroad. Carey subsequently worked as a general passenger and ticket agent for the Illinois Central Railroad, eventually moving with his wife to New Orleans. The Careys had two daughters, Nell (Nellie) S., who was born in January of 1874, and Elizabeth (Bessie), who was born on July 28, 1879. After the death of her second husband on November 6, 1880, Cora E. Carey and her two daughters returned to Holly Springs. Carey died in Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, in 1911.