Joseph Hillery King was born (1869–1946) in Anderson County, South Carolina, USA. The family had 11 children and he was the second. His father was an “extremely poor tenant farmer” (Muse 1946). When Joseph left home at the age of 20 (1889), he had only attended 18 months of public-school education.

King married Willie Irene King on August 10, 1890, but she left him and eventually got a divorce not wanting to be a pastor’s spouse. He waited until her death and then  married Blanche Leon Moore on June 1, 1920. They had 4 children, Easter Lily, Jo…