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 [2] that was located in Durham, North Carolina.

He was an agent and he had something that we prized a lot: a car [3], 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 [4], he never had any hair, and I believe he specialized in hats because he wanted to cover his head.