Raymond Pollock Cunningham

  General Notes:

Uncle Raymond never married. He became a hermit and would have nothing to do with the family. Once after Jelaine and Jerry married, they went out to his farm and asked him if they could go fishing in his pond. He let them.

One story my father, James Leonard Worthington, told was that one time Uncle Raymond went to the Cadilac dealership in Kinston to buy a car. The salesman brushed him off because he was in overalls and looked like a farmer. After he left someone told him the he had just lost a sale because Uncle Raymond probably had the cash in his pocket to pay for the car on the spot.

When Uncle Raymond died, he left most of his estate (worth millions of dollars) to NC State University. He gave his old truck to one relative, allowed some of the others living on his land to farm it until they died, and gave each of his nieces and nephews a check for $200. My Dad (James L.) was upset and never cashed the check. He didn't want Uncle Raymond's estate, but thought he should have left it to the nieces and nephews that farmed the land. He thought that Uncle Raymond's lawyer took advantage of Uncle Raymond's senility. The land he left NCState Univ. was under the condition that they build a building named after him on the land and that they use the land for farming research. The land is located outside of Kinston across from Kinston High School. He also sold Lenoir County the land for the present day Lenoir Memorial Hospital and Kinston High School.