John Divine Waymon

Biographical Notes

Eunice’s father, John Divine Waymon, had been an entertainer before he chose to move his family to Tyron, a North Carolina resort town, and set up a barbershop and dry cleaners to support his family. In her autobiography – I Put a Spell on You, the Autobiography of Nina Simone – Waymon describes her relationship with her father as loving and supportive and Tyron as “uncommon” for a southern town because blacks and whites lived together in a series of circles around the center of town, which allowed them to mingle and form friendships.

Events

• 1930 census, Polk County, NC, Tryon. Lived on Howard Street. Occupation: dry cleaners. Lived with wife Kate and children John I, Lucille, Harold, Carroll, and Dorothy.

Links

• The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed - North Carolina

Sources

• Nina Simone, I Put a Spell on You, the Autobiography of Nina Simone (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press,1993)
• Sylvia Hampton, David Nathan, and Lisa Simone Kelly, Nina Simone: Breakdown and Let it All Out (London: Sanctuary Publishing Limited, 2004)
• Jody Kolodzey, “Remembering Nina Simone,” Culture, May 5, 2003
• Adam Shatz, “Nina Simone Obituary,” The Nation, May 19, 2003
• The Nina Simone Foundation: http://www.theninasimonefoundation.org
• Roger Nupie, Dr. Nina Simone Biography: http://www.ninasimone.com