So where were we?
If you remember from our last post, Alonzo Page¹ had shot and murdered his father, Obadiah Page, and then run off to Texas, never to return. This week we'll focus on one of Alonzo's younger brothers, Leroy Anderson Page.
Leroy became a successful tobacco farmer in Durham in the 1920s. He and wife Fallie Perry had about nine children together, including the incredibly named Fabius "Fab" Haywood Page. Leroy's wife Fallie, unfortunately, wasn't the only lady for Leroy. He had taken up with another woman, whom he was spoiling with lavish gifts. One account claimed he had "turned over his checkbook" to his mistress. We know for certain that he bought her an automobile, certainly not a minor expense in the 1920s. Leroy's mistress, whose name is lost to history, would drive her car over to visit him, and she was frequently spotted riding it around the dirt roads of the family's extensive property.
The rule about Leroy's other woman was that you didn't talk about her. This woman was also married and had children, and their relationship was well-known amongst the community. So well-known, in fact, that Leroy's fellow deacons at the Cedar Fork Baptist Church asked him to please explain the nature of their relationship. After threatening said deacons, likely with bodily harm, were they to ever mention his mistress's name again, it was claimed that Leroy paced back and forth in front of the church "storming and stamping in rage."
One day, in late August of 1925, Fab Page, whose farm was a short walk down the road from his father Leroy's own, noticed something missing. His finest watermelon had been plucked from the vine. Nearby the watermelon patch he spotted familiar tire tracks. The tracks of a car purchased for and driven by his father's mistress.
Fab Page immediately reported the watermelon as missing. To whom, we just don't know. The watermelon police? This was 1920s Cedar Fork, North Carolina, and taking another man's prize watermelon would not stand. Fab accused his father's mistress of stealing said watermelon, and all hell, as they say, broke loose.
Leroy heard tell of all of this and became enraged. It's unclear whether he was angry that his mistress's existence had been referenced, that she had been badmouthed, or that he mistakenly thought his son was accusing him of Grand Theft Melon, but either way, he wasn't having it. Fab, being advised of his father's temper, avoided him for several days, until he made the unfortunate mistake of crossing his path early one morning en route home from his tobacco barn.
I like to imagine Fab giving Leroy finger guns, maybe saying something awkwardly casual to his father, like, "Heyyyyyy!! What's up, Big Guy?" Maybe he took a telegraph out of his pocket, looked down at it, and said, "Sorry, I gotta take this," and then sprinted back to his house.
Ahem. Here's what actually happened.
Fab asked his father a breezy question about tobacco curing, wishing to avoid an altercation, but to no avail. Leroy curtly informed him that he had another matter to take care of before he would discuss the intricacies of tobacco curing. Before he would talk tobacco, he was going to talk watermelon.
Leroy grabbed a six-foot-long tree root on the road nearby and began beating his son with it. The tree limb, about two inches in diameter, broke several times and left both men with makeshift swords, about two feet in length. The fight raged on until, at some point, the younger Fabius gained an advantage and continued beating his father until Leroy lay immobile on the ground.
"I'll kill you if I ever get up," Leroy Page gasped, his final words.
It might be the first time we've seen "Beat to death with a stick" on a death certificate, but we'd wager good money that it won't be the last.
Fabius Page was ultimately acquitted for the murder of his father, the latter's reputation as an angry and violent man being known and the condition of self-defense argued to success.
The Charlotte Observer, 11 December 1926
Fab appears to have had a happy life. He married, had children, and didn't abuse any of them, at least not to our knowledge. He seems, in fact, to have been a tender-hearted man. This we suspect as he created a horse and mule cemetery with elaborate headstones commemorating his dear, departed animals. You can still go visit the cemetery if you're in the area. Their headstones, to be sure, are much more elaborate than that of Leroy Page, which states, simply "FATHER."
Dan was best of all. One of many headstones in Fab Page's Horse & Mule Cemetery, outside of Durham, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Strange Carolinas.
"FATHER"
If there's a moral to any of this, we suppose it's don't abuse people. And don't have affairs. And never let your mistress steal your son's favorite watermelon.
Notes
¹ The son who shot and killed Obadiah Page, Jr.'s real name was Leonidas Lafayette Page. The papers all refer to him as "Alonzo," but it's unclear if that was his nickname or a mistake.
Sources
"A Most Distressing Occurrence," The New Berne Times [New Bern, NC], 25 Jan 1866.
"John Page (planter)", Wikipedia, accessed 27 Aug 2022.
"Leroy H. Page Killed By Son with a Cudgel," The Charlotte Observer [Charlotte, NC], 26 Aug 1926.
Schweninger, Loren. "To the Honorable: Divorce, Alimony, Slavery and the Law in Antebellum North Carolina," North Carolina Historical Review 84 (April 2009) 127-179.
"Son on Trial for Slaying of Father,"The News and Observer [Raleigh, NC], 9 Dec 1926.
Comments