Local author recounts lost stories of ancestors, former slaves and a Civil War vet

Cheryl Wills, a veteran news anchor and reporter, has spent the last decade uncovering the lost stories of her ancestors, a pair of former slaves who fought for their country and their freedom.

And she is now closer than ever to giving them the proper burial they deserve.

Wills, a Freeport resident who has written four books on her great-great-great grandparents, Sandy and Emma Wills, said Sunday she has received permission from the owners of the Tennessee plantation where she believes they are buried to “find a way to honor your family.”

Wills, who works for Spectrum News NY1, wants to identify their remains, exhume them from unmarked graves and bury them in Memphis National Cemetery. She said she expects to return to Tennessee this spring to discuss the project with the landowners and to hopefully begin identifying remains this summer using an archaeology team.

“I get emotional thinking about it because no one cared about them," Wills said, wiping tears from her eyes and noting their stories were unknown until she chronicled them.

Wills detailed the lives of Sandy and Emma Wills and her journey to resurrect their stories — which she called her “life’s work” — while promoting her new children’s book, “Emma,” at Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington Sunday.

Wills encouraged audience members to dig into their own family histories because they "make you strong." She said learning she came “from a family of warriors and survivors” was transformative, and that Black History Month is all about connecting to those lost stories. 

“So much of black history is like the world took an eraser and said, ‘Every chance we get, we’re going to erase,’” Wills said. “That’s why I do what I do.”

Emma Wills, the subject of her latest book, was born to house slaves around 1850 and freed as a teen. Emma was illiterate but wanted to document the family she had with husband Sandy Wills, a Civil War veteran with the same last name as his former slaveowner. So Emma asked her former slaveholder to record the births of her nine children in a Bible she could not read, Wills said.  

After her husband died, Emma successfully fought the U.S. government to get the pension she was owed as the widow of a soldier, she said. The government had repeatedly denied her requests because Emma could not provide either of their birth records, which few former slaves possessed.

After her talk, Wills unveiled a certified copy of the Emancipation Proclamation — one of about 40 copies signed by President Abraham Lincoln — that she said she received as a gift from the African American Civil War Museum for her work.

Lei-Ann Mosby, a Queens middle school social studies teacher, said she was moved by Wills’ presentation, saying “it gives hope.”

“I just wish my students were here so that they would be able to see firsthand that it’s not just a story in the book, that they too have stories that can be told,” said Mosby, tearing up.

By Rachelle Blidner

rachelle.blidner@newsday.com@rachelleblidner

Rachelle Blidner covers Suffolk County government, politics and breaking news.