Person:Vivian Champion (1)

V.M. Champion was born in Jacksonville, Calhoun County, Alabama and named for a man at the Episcopal Church at Jacksonville, St Luke's, Vivian H. Marshall. The Champions were memebers of this church.

The Champion family moved from Jacksonville in about 1901 to near Pell City, Alabama. At one time they lived near Eden, and at another time near Coal City in an area called Rabbit College.Then they moved to the cotton mill village where all the men of the family worked. The Champions attended St Mary's Episcopal Church in Pell City until it disbanded and then they attended the new Wesleyan Methodist Church.

In late 1917 or early 1918, the family moved to Birmingham and the men went to work at the Barrett Plant in Wylam. V.M. "Bibb" Champion had married by this time and he moved to Birmingham with his family, but his wife Sallie stayed with her folks in Pell City to have their first child, Hazel. Hazel was born in March 1918 and after she was about 6 weeks old, Sallie and Hazel joined Bibb in Birmingham.

During the influenza epidemic after WWI, V.M. and Sallie and Hazel went to Pell City to see her family, arriving there on the midnight train. They gotto their house to find almost everyone sick in bed with the flu and Dessie tending to them all. Soon they came down with the flu also.

So many people were sick that the cotton mill had to shut down. While they were still ill, Freeman Wright came to see Bibb and told him if he would come back to work at the mill, he would give him a job and a house. Neither Bibb nor Sallie liked living in Birmingham, so they agreed to return to Pell City.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Photo of tombstone, in Find A Grave
   Vivian Marshall "Bibb" Champion.
2. ↑ Alabama, United States. Alabama Deaths, 1908-1974; Index to Deaths, 1908-1959. (Alabama).

   Death Date: 24 Feb 1971
   Death Place: Pell City, St. Clair, Alabama
   Father Name: M A Champion
   Mother Name: Mary Shell
   Spouse Name: Sallie Champion
   FHL Film Number: 2051648

3. ↑ United States. Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Microfilm Publication M1509, 1987-1988).

   Living in Birmingham. Wife next of kin.

4. ↑ St. Clair, Alabama, United States. 1930 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration Publication T626).

   Vivia M. Champion 31 AL, par US, cotton mill textile foreman; m. age 19; Sallie F. 28 AL, m. age 16; Hazel V. 12 AL; Sarah L. 10 AL; Mattie E. 8 AL; Marshal E. 4; Vivian M. 1 (Eden, p. 7B, ED 21, 4/7/1930)