1881 Bible returns home
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on March 13, 2017 8:13 AM
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Benjamin Franklin Nichols at an 1881 Bible that was owned by his grandmother. A woman, Holly Skillings, rescued it from a dumpster in Florida and did a lot of research to find the descendants of its owner.
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
This 1881 Bible was returned to Greg Nichols, son of Benjamin Franklin Nichols, in a decorative box with this note from Holly Skillings, who discovered it in a dumpster in Florida.
Greg Nichols touches the pages of an old, old Bible and chokes up as he reads what his great-grandmother wrote in it. He sees birth and death dates of relatives he never met. He reads poems that his great-grandmother wrote.
Although he never knew his great-grandmother, Greg still feels a deep connection the woman and his family.
The 1881 Bible that belonged to Mary Ellen Aycock Holland, who was born in 1874, was recently reunited with her descendants.
It would have been lost forever had it not been for a woman in Florida who felt it would be a tragedy to lose its history forever.
Holly Skillings lives in Torch Key, Fla., where her boyfriend owns a general disposal company, taking dumpsters to mostly businesses and picking them back up when they are full.
"It's rare for him to get a house call, but this one was," Ms. Skillings said. "The new family that moved in found boxes of stuff and threw it out. My boyfriend and I believe one person's trash is another person's treasure."
While looking through the dumpster, they found the 3 by 5 inch Bible, the New Testament. Ms. Skillings was surprised to find handwritten information inside detailing someone's family history. She had never heard the name Aycock, but began doing some research when she also found written in the Bible, Fremont, N.C. She found Gov. Charles Aycock Birthplace and contacted Leigh Strickland at the historic site.
Ms. Strickland said it was early February when she got a call from Ms. Skillings about the Bible. Through genealogical records at the historic site, they finally found Mary Ellen's descendants, and Ms. Skillings put the Bible in a fancy box with a note and sent it to Greg, who is a history buff.
"Flipping through the pages of that Bible, it was more emotional than I would have thought," he said. "It makes me have a connection with the past, a connection that I've never had before."
That's because Greg never knew much of his family. His grandmother, his father's mother, died when his father, Benjamin Franklin Nichols, who is now 86, was just 2. Benjamin and some of his brothers and sisters were taken in by other family and raised by them, and the family became somewhat separated.
Greg's sister, Connie Gurganus, said looking through the pages of the Bible also makes her feel connected with the past.
"I was very excited and happy for Daddy when we found out about the Bible," she said. "I knew this would touch him and it would be what he needed in his life right now."
No one knows how the Bible ended up in Florida, but Greg said he has thanked Ms. Skillings over and over for not leaving his family's treasure in that dumpster.
"There's so much history in that little Bible, and it was so sad to find it in a dumpster to be crushed or burned up and history lost forever," Ms. Skillings said. "It looked so old, and especially with technology today, nobody writes anything down. To find something so old with all this handwriting in it, ending up in a dumpster was sad.
"I got really attached to that Bible and felt like I knew the family after all the research I did. This has been a fantastic experience. Now that the Bible is back with family and they are happy, that's all I ever wanted."
The Nichols family is working with Ms. Strickland to loan the Bible to Aycock Birthplace, where others will see it, too.
"I don't want to put it in a drawer and it be forgotten," Greg said.
In addition to the names of her nine children, Mary Ellen Aycock Holland wrote about Sunday school attendance in her little Bible. And she penciled in two poems. The one at the front states: "When on this page you chance to look, just think of me and close the book." The one in the back states: "Steal not this book for fear and shame, look at the top and see the name." At the top of the page -- and several other pages in the Bible -- is Mary Ellen's name.