Ama Riah McPhail (1883-1928)

From the Raleigh News Observer, March 29, 1913.

   Rockingham, North Carolina resident Ama Riah McPhail is another obscure one-term Old Dominion State legislator,  and despite his lack of years (he died aged 44 in 1928) carved a notable career for himself in his home county of Richmond.  The son of Joseph Richard and Martha Ann (Westbrook) McPhail, Ama Riah McPhail was born March 2, 1883, in Sampson County, North Carolina. McPhail's youth saw him as a student at the Horner's Military School in Oxford, North Carolina, and he would later attend the Trinity College from 1903-07. After deciding to pursue a career in law McPhail enrolled at the University of North Carolina, where he received his bachelor of laws degree in 1908.

  McPhail married in May 1909 to Lily Elizabeth Lyon (1890-1986), with whom he had two children, Frances Small and Lily Elizabeth (1914-1951). He began the practice of law in Rockingham and would specialize in "civil cases and land litigation." In November 1912 he was elected as Richmond County's representative to the North Carolina legislature and during the 1913-15 session his "principal efforts were toward eliminating and preventing useless and superfluous measures being passed." He would also serve on the committees on Claims; Corporations; Counties, Cities, Towns and Townships; Expenditures of the House; Internal Improvements; Judiciary No. 2; and Propositions and Grievances.

  Following his term, McPhail continued with his law practice and also held memberships in several local fraternal groups, including the Elks Lodge, the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows, the Masonic order, and the Modern Woodmen of America. On February 1, 1928, Ama Riah McPhail died in Charlotte, North Carolina hospital at the age of just 44, his cause of death being attributed to bronchial pneumonia and acute myocarditis (as per his death certificate.) He was survived by both of his parents, his wife, and two children. Following her death at age 96 in 1986, Lilly Lyon McPhail was interred alongside her husband at the Eastside Cemetery in Rockingham.

From the Wilson Daily Times, February 2, 1928.