Obituary published in the Goldsboro News-Argus on Monday, December 26, 1950:
Two Die On Wayne Highways
During Christmas Weekend
Two were killed and one injured in accidents in Wayne county over the Christmas holiday.
Dead are Louis Thomas Hall, 14, of Goldsboro route 3, and John Edward Gurley, 29, of Goldsboro.
Hall was killed instantly Sunday night when struck by an automobile in front of St. John Free Will Baptist church about 10 miles southeast of Goldsboro.
He and Edwin Holmes, 18 were tussling in the church yard when they fell in the road in the path of a car. Holmes was treated at Wayne Memorial hospital for a leg injury, Deputy Sheriff Roy Percise reported.
The report said the two boys had gathered with a group at the church to practice a Christmas program, and that the two were scrapping over possession of some firecrackers. The car was driven by Max Walker of Goldsboro route 3. Coroner Harry Shumate, Jr., called an inquest into the death to be held Thursday at 2 p. m.
Gurley, an employee of the General Electric company in Goldsboro, was killed instantly Saturday at 10 p. m. when his car plunged down an embankment to the railroad tracks at the old airport site in east Goldsboro.
Dead End Street
Deputy Percise said Gurley was traveling on a dead-end street that ended at the railroad embankment, and that he thought he was evidently on the way to the Kinston highway, thinking the road connected. The impact crushed his chest, and disrupted the tracks, Percise said.
Funeral services for young Hall were held Tuesday afternoon at Pauline church in Johnston county. The boy is survived by his mother, Mrs. Norwood Moye of Goldsboro route 3, his father, Luther Hall of Adamsville, and a half-sister, Linda Carol Hall.
Military honors, a firing squad and bugler from Fort Bragg were paid to Gurley in a funeral Monday afternoon at Pentecostal Holiness church near Princeton. He was a veteran of World War II. Pallbearers were members of the Pine Level American Legion post.
He is survived by his wife and two small children, Johnny and Brenda Kay; parents Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Gurley of Pine Level; four brothers, Thomas of Selma route 3, Elton who is in the Army in Japan, Leon in the Army in Korea, and Jessie Wayne of the home; two sisters, Mrs.. Kirby Singleton of La Grange route 3, and Mrs. C. D. Turnage of Goldsboro.
John Edward Gurley is buried in the Creech Cemetery which is located in Johnston County, NC:
