Florence Warfield Sillers
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{short description|American socialite and historian}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Florence Warfield Sillers
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Florence Carson Warfield
| birth_date = {{birth date|1869|09|25}}
| birth_place = Boonville, Missouri
United States
| death_date = {{death date and age|1958|04|05|1869|09|25}}
| death_place =
| resting_place = Beulah Cemetery
Beulah, Mississippi
| occupation = {{hlist|historian|socialite}}
| notableworks = History of Bolivar County, Mississippi
| spouse = Walter Sillers
| parents = Elisha Warfield
Mary Anderson Carson
| children = 6 (including Walter and Florence)
}}
Florence Carson Warfield Sillers (September 25, 1869 – April 5, 1958) was an American socialite and historian. A member of an influential American family with colonial ties, Sillers was a prominent figure of Mississippi society and was a founding member of the Mississippi Delta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was a member of multiple lineage and historical societies including the Colonial Dames of America, the National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons, and the Mississippi Historical Society. In 1948 she published the History of Bolivar County, Mississippi, a book on the history of Bolivar County that glorified the Confederacy and contributed to the Lost Cause narrative.
Biography
Sillers was born on September 25, 1869, in Booneville, Missouri, and grew up in Louisiana and Mississippi. She was the daughter of Colonel Elisha Warfield and Mary Anderson Carson.{{Cite web|url=https://sillersfamily.wordpress.com/the-people/florence-warfield-sillers/|title=Florence Warfield Sillers|date=July 10, 2009}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30940518/clarion-ledger/|title=Clipped From Clarion-Ledger|newspaper=Clarion-Ledger|date=July 30, 1936|pages=8|via=newspapers.com}} Her father, a planter who owned a plantation in Bolivar County, Mississippi, near Rosedale, served as a Confederate Officer in the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War.{{Cite web|url=https://sillersfamily.wordpress.com/family-history/warfield-family-history/|title=Warfield Family History|date=July 10, 2009}}{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b8sGAQAAIAAJ&q=Florence+Warfield+Sillers&pg=PA833|title=The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi|first=Mississippi Department of Archives and|last=History|date=July 15, 1917|publisher=Department of Archives and History|via=Google Books}} Her paternal ancestors had come from Great Britain to the Province of Maryland in the 17th century.{{cite web |title=Richard Warfield, Progenitor of the Warfield Family in Maryland | website=Snowden and Warfield Family Genealogy Website | url=http://www.snowden-warfield.com/Stories/RichardWarfieldProgenitor.htm | access-date=2020-07-15}} Sillers was the great-granddaughter of the physician and horse-breeder Elisha Warfield and a grandniece of the suffragist Mary Jane Warfield Clay.
In 1887, at the age of seventeen, she married Walter Sillers, a lawyer and member of a prominent Mississippi Delta family, and had six children; Anna Farrar Sillers, Mary Sillers Skinner, Florence Sillers Ogden, Walter Sillers Jr., Evelyn Sillers Pearson, and Lillian Burrill Sillers Holleman. She was his second wife.{{cite web |url=https://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/nom/prop/27264.pdf |title=Data |last= |first= |date= |website=www.apps.mdah.ms.gov|access-date=2020-07-15}} Her husband owned several plantations in Bolivar County and was a Mississippi Democratic executive committee member.{{Cite web|url=http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/356/walter-sillers-and-his-fifty-years-inside-mississippi-politics|title=Walter Sillers and His Fifty Years Inside Mississippi Politics | Mississippi History Now|website=mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us|access-date=July 15, 2020|archive-date=October 21, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021153507/http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/356/walter-sillers-and-his-fifty-years-inside-mississippi-politics|url-status=dead}} She lived with her family in a Victorian style mansion on Levee Street in Rosedale.
As a prominent society figure in Mississippi, Sillers was member of multiple social societies and civic organizations including local chapters of the Colonial Dames of America, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Red Cross, Mississippi Delta Council, and the Rosedale Country Club.{{cite web |title=Collection Title: Florence Warfield Sillers Collection Number |website=studylib.net | url=https://studylib.net/doc/15562904/collection-title---florence-warfield-sillers-collection-n | access-date=2020-07-15}} She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and served as treasurer of the King's Daughters Hospital of Rosedale for twenty years. She was also a member of the Texas State Historical Association and the Mississippi Historical Society. Sillers was a founding member of the Mississippi Delta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She later served as regent of the Chapter.{{cite web |url=http://msgw.org/bolivar/HBCPreface.pdf |title=Info|website= msgw.org|access-date=2020-07-15}} In 1948 Sillers authored a book on the history of Bolivar County, titled History of Bolivar County, Mississippi,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7aM7DwAAQBAJ&q=Florence+Warfield+Sillers&pg=PA281|title=Sowing the Wind: The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890|first=Dorothy Overstreet|last=Pratt|date=November 6, 2017|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9781496815491|via=Google Books}} that glorified the Antebellum South and the Confederate States of America.{{Cite web|url=https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/florence-sillers-ogden/ |title=Ogden, Florence Sillers|website=Mississippi Encyclopedia}}{{cite journal |url=http://mississippidelta.com/AE_288-309.pdf |title=Confederate Lane:Class, race, and ethnicity in the Mississippi Delta |first1=Jane |last1=Adams |first2=D. |last2=Gorton |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=33 |issue=2 |date=May 2006|pages=288–309 |doi=10.1525/ae.2006.33.2.288 }}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWolDwAAQBAJ&q=was+florence+warfield+in+the+united+daughters+of+the+confederacy&pg=PA952|title=The Mississippi Encyclopedia|first1=Ted|last1=Ownby|first2=Charles Reagan|last2=Wilson|first3=Ann J.|last3=Abadie|first4=Odie|last4=Lindsey|first5=James G. Thomas|last5=Jr|date=May 25, 2017|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9781496811592|via=Google Books}} Sillers was also a member of the National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons, a society for descendants of signers of Magna Carta.{{Cite web|url=http://www.magnacharta.org/Decd99/decddmvz.htm|title=Deceased Dames Maiden Alpha V to Z|website=www.magnacharta.org}}
Sillers died on April 5, 1958, and is buried at Beulah Cemetery in Beulah, Mississippi.{{Cite web|url=http://genealogytrails.com/miss/bolivar/cemeteries/beulah.html|title=Forrest County, MS Cemeteries|website=genealogytrails.com}}{{Cite web |url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/ms/bolivar/cemeteries/beulah.txt |title=Bolivar County MsArchives Cemeteries.....Beulah Cemetery, Part 1 |publisher=USGW Archives |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200804202345/http://files.usgwarchives.net/ms/bolivar/cemeteries/beulah.txt |archive-date=August 4, 2020 |url-status=live |access-date=July 15, 2020 }}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sillers, Florence Warfield}}
Category:20th-century American women writers
Category:American women historians
Category:Spouses of Mississippi politicians
Category:American Red Cross personnel
Category:Colonial Dames of America
Category:Daughters of the American Revolution people
Category:Historians from Mississippi
Category:Historians of the American Civil War
Category:Lost Cause of the Confederacy
Category:People from Boonville, Missouri
Category:People from Rosedale, Mississippi