Alexander Worth McAlister Sr. (1862-1946) was a prominent Greensboro businessman in the early 1900s. Born to Adelaide Worth and Alexander Cary McAlister in Asheboro, North Carolina, he graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1882 and also attended law school in Chapel Hill, receiving his license in 1887. He moved to Greensboro in 1890 and began working with his uncle, T.C. Worth, in the Worth-Wharton Real Estate and Investment Company. In 1895, the officers of this company organized Greensboro’s first fire insurance agency, the Southern Stock Mutual Fire Insurance Company, then changed the name to Pilot Fire Insurance Company in 1899. In 1903, the Southern Loan and Trust Company, formerly Worth-Wharton Real Estate and Investment Company, split its real estate and life insurance departments. McAlister organized the life insurance department into Pilot Life Insurance Company, and he served as its president from 1908-1931, and again from 1932-1934 after the death of President C.W. Gold. In 1945, the company merged with Gate City Life Insurance Company, owned by Jefferson Standard, and they formed Jefferson-Pilot Corporation in 1968. The real estate departments of the Southern Loan and Trust Company became the Southern Real Estate Company in 1904, and this company oversaw the creation of the Southern Trust Building, the Greensboro Country Club, Irving Park, and the Sedgefield Country Club, Sedgefield Inn, and Sedgefield residential areas. A.W. McAlister Sr. served as an elder in both First Presbyterian Church and the Church by the Side of the Road, originally Bessemer Avenue Presbyterian Church. The Church by the Side of the Road split from the Presbyterian denomination, becoming the nondenominational Community Church in the 1930s. He was an organizer and the first president of the Greensboro Council of Catholics, Jews, and Protestants, and he also helped organize the Greensboro Welfare Board. As a member of the state welfare board for almost thirty years, he was key in the establishment of separate welfare boards in each county in North Carolina. On April 11, 1896, A.W. McAlister Sr. married Sarah Little (1872-1967), and they had six children: Frank Little (1895-1945), John Worth (1897-1956), Lacy Little (1898-1983), Jean Colvin (1900-1987), Alexander Worth Jr. (1902-1985), and Flax Reid (1905-1957). John and Lacy graduated from Greensboro High School in 1915 and 1916, where Lacy participated in football, baseball, basketball, and track. Notably, Dr. Jean McAlister worked as a pediatrician for thirty years, earning recognition from The Journal of Pediatrics and President Harry Truman. Key items in this collection from the Little side of the family pertain to Edgeworth Female Seminary and Carlisle plantation. Mary Jane Reid, the mother of Sarah Little McAlister, graduated from Edgeworth Female Seminary in 1850. The all-female school was founded in 1840 by John Motley Morehead, and it operated intermittently until burning down in 1872. The Carlisle plantation featured in many photos was built by Benjamin Franklin “B.F.” Little, father of Sarah Little McAlister, in 1859 in Richmond County, North Carolina. Col. B.F. Little later served in the Civil War, losing his left arm while fighting for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. A.W. McAlister Jr. worked as a field hand at the plantation in the early 20th century, and the house burned down in 1963.
