Winson Hudson - Early Life and Marriage

Early Life and Marriage

Anger Winson Gates, named after her paternal grandmother, Angeline Gates Turner, was born on November 17 in Mississippi. She was the tenth child of thirteen children born to John Wesely Gates and Emma Laura Kirkland Turner. Her grandmother, Angeline Gates Turner, grew up as a slave and had a great impact on Winson's life. Her grandmother was taken advantage of by white men of the Moore family, the family who brought her as a slave to Leake County. Winson's paternal grandfather was a white lawyer named Dave Moore. Winson's mother died, at age 44, during childbirth, due to lack of medical attention when Winson was eight years old. Winson's father raised her and her siblings on his own. Their family had a 105 acre farm in which provided them with food and resources until it was sold to another black family by a white doctor. Growing up, Winson was involved in the church. Her mother (before her death) and her father were both involved in the ministry.

Winson quit school in eleventh grade when she married Leroy Cleo Hudson (died 1971)at the age of eighteen in 1936. Cleo Hudson's grandfather, Joe Dotson, owned four or five hundred acres of land in Harmony. Times were hard and they moved to Chicago briefly to find jobs. After moving back to Mississippi, Winson obtained her teaching certification and taught school in Leake County, Mississippi from 1949 to 1951. She taught first, second and third grade classes at Bay Spring Grammar School. Later she became Lunchroom Manager at Harmony School, where she served food.