Durham, North Carolina- Today we honor Isabella (aka Belle) Vick, born this day 165 years ago in 1859 according to her headstone. Unfortunately, we know as much about Belle’s death as we do about her life.

The headstone in Geer Cemetery tells us she died on April 16, 1887, just a few weeks after her 28th birthday. However, a newspaper clipping from April of 1888 places her sudden death from a pneumonia-induced hemorrhage a year later, around April 1, 1888.

The only record we could find of her life is that of her marriage to Edward Vick in Danville, VA in 1882. The document indicates she was born Belle Whitty in Durham, the daughter of Mary Whitty.

However, neither Belle nor anyone with the Whitty surname could be located in the 1860, 1870 or 1880 censuses or any other Durham records of the era.

Edward was from Richmond, VA and was working as a porter at the Hotel Normandie in Danville at the time of their marriage. However, he appears in the 1880 census in Durham, working as a hostler and boarding in the house of Jack and Harriett Tilley, so it seems possible that Edward and Belle met in Durham, but we can’t say for sure.

We don’t know if Edward and Belle spent their married life in Danville or Durham (or both), but we know she died in Durham, buried in Geer Cemetery.

Her burial there is one of the oldest we have on record and one of the oldest surviving headstones, with the cemetery opening only a decade earlier in 1877.

After Belle’s death, Edward spent the rest of his life in Virginia, continuing work at the Hotel Normandie, and later as a porter and waiter at hotels in Norfolk, VA. He would pass away in 1924 of heart disease, buried not beside his wife in Durham, but in Calvary Cemetery in Norfolk.
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Narrative and photo source: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC - Advocacy group for Geer Cemetery, a historic African American cemetery located in Durham, NC.