Bessie's Barn

Bessie Fletcher and her husband George married in 1914 and owned a hillside farm on the Lerona side of Bent Mountain which many people of my young days referred to as “Bessie’s Mountain”. The couple had two children: a son named George Robert (who left this area during his service enlistment in war times), and a daughter named Cleo (who first married Berman Hopkins, and later Joseph Bridgman).

Miss Bessie’s maiden name was “Wood." She was from an old family who were very well known, that once lived near a little community called Warford on New River (just a jump off the hill from Anderson Ridge in Pipestem). Along with her younger brother Leslie, they were the children of Robert Allen and Eliza Lou (Meadows) Wood. Rob and “Little Lou” Wood as they were known, were very respected citizens in their day. Bessie’s husband passed away in 1957, but she continued to live on her farm until she passed away in 1972. The house where they lived remains to this day. The barn is another story.

My brother and I along with our childhood friends spent countless hours playing in Bessie’s barn; everything from building forts in the hay loft to pestering Miss Bessie’s cats. She always knew we were there, and when her cats had enough, she called Mom or Aunt Orpha to come and take us away. I knew it from top to bottom; a special deluxe model, with a spiral staircase that led to the loft.

On the other side of “Bessie’s Mountain” was an old cemetery belonging to a family named Cook. It seems this log barn was once upon a time a house which was part of the Cook plantation (Pages 88-90 in Lon’s Hopkins little history book if you have it). The old barn was torn down many years ago, and much like the rail fences that have lined our landscape as reminders of the hard work of our fathers, they are disappearing forever. “Yes, a part of me was raised in a barn”.