Mr. Walter Eugene Hayley

This bio is from: “History of the American Negro and his institutions, North Carolina Volume IV, 1921.
by A. B. Caldwell

Representatives of the negro race are now found in practically every department of human activity. They are practicing law and medicine, preaching and teaching, following the various mechanical trades, and engaging in all lines of mercantile activities.
Their stores, banks, newspapers, office buildings and theatres constitute a part of the life of every considerable city in the South.

Hayley's Pharmacy at Concord, N. C, is representative of this feature of the expanding life of the Negro.
It is owned by Walter Eugene Hayley, the subject of this biography. What he has accomplished is a monument to the power of a forceful personality and a purpose resolutely bent to the accomplishment of a given task.

He was born Dec. 10, 1882, in Northampton Co., N. C, the son of Paul F. Hayley and Nancy Christmas Hayley. His father was a railway postal clerk. His paternal grandfather was Holiday Haley, of Northampton Co.
On the mother’s side his grandparents were Marcus Christmas and Henrietta Christmas, of Warrenton, N. C.

The early years of his active life were spent in school. After passing through Washington public and high school, he went to Shaw University, graduating in 1906 from Leonard School of Pharmacy, with the Ph. G. degree.

In July, 1906, he began at Winston-Salem, N. C, his life business, that of a druggist, a business deserving also to be dignified by the title of a profession. This profession he has followed to the present time, and in it he has attained a marked degree of success. He remained there for three years.

On Jan. 2, 1907, he married Miss Alice E. Hairston (1888-1979), daughter of Dillard Hairston of Walnut Cove, Stokes Co., North Carolina. They have five children, Mercedes Vivian, Walter Eugene, Jr., Mary Hall, Gwendolyn Paul and Nancy Alice Louise Hayley. *a sixth child, James R.. Hayley was born in 1924*

Dr. Hayley has traveled considerably in various parts of the United States. In his reading he has sought out those works which deserve a place among the highest productions of the human mind, passing by the trashy, light and frothy productions which are the creatures of the hour and die with the hour.

The great masterpieces of English and American writers have brought him their messages and put their spirit into his life.

Mr. Hayley died 22 Jun 1934 (aged 46) in Concord, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, He is buried at Old Campground Cemetery Concord, Cabarrus County, North Carolina.

Mrs. Alice E Hairston Hayley died in 1979 (aged 90-91), and is buried in Gracelawn Memorial Park, in New Castle, New Castle County, Delaware.