A. E. Spears

Arthur Eugene ("A.E.") Spears (1885-1981) was an insurance agent in Charlotte. His daughter, Daisy Spears Stroud spoke about him:

My father, A. E. Spears.

Well, my father was a salesman par excellence I guess you’d call it. He could really sell. His place of employment was North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company that was located in Durham, North Carolina.

He was an agent and he had something that we prized a lot: a car, and it so happened that it was the only car that was owned by, well, a black person in the neighborhood. So when he would travel through the towns, he would advertise, as he’s driving along. He was standing there with a lot of pride. If you notice the hat he had in his hand, he was a lover of hats, because I believe my father was born bald.

Because all the pictures that we had of him, he never had any hair, and I believe he specialized in hats because he wanted to cover his head.