My Mom and Dad’s
Journey
My mother
was born Lettie Austin Weese on May 3,1906, and was raised on a farm in Grant
County, West Virginia. She had an older sister, Sadie, born on August 7, 1902,
and an older brother, Berkeley Osborne, born on May 7, 1904. When Mom was in her
twenties she went to Moorefield, in Hardy County, West Virginia, and worked with
families who needed childcare and housekeeping. My father, Harness Ervin
Bensenhaver, was born on March 5, 1901, on a farm near Moorefield. He had one
older sister, Lena Ethel, who was born on February 23, 1898. When Dad was older,
he traveled around the country before he joined the army after World War One and
was stationed at the Panama Canal. He returned to Moorefield and met my mom, and
they were married on May 10, 1930, in the Methodist parsonage.
Dad opened his first restaurant in 1932 on Main Street in the middle of town.
They lived in a small house on the outskirts of town where their three children
were born: one son, Ervin Lee, on April 1, 1932; one daughter, Emma Jean, on
July 4, 1933; and a second son, James Russel, on February 4, 1935. While we were
very young, in 1937, Dad had a new two-story house and a restaurant built on
Main Street in north Moorefield. They were finished in stucco. In a few years, a
high school was built near our property.
Dad and Mom served many lunches, mainly hotdogs and hamburgers, through the
years. They also had pool tables for customers to enjoy. Mom made home-made
pies, which many people enjoyed. Mom and Dad always shared our home and cooked
meals for their help or any homeless people stopping by. Dad would always get up
in the middle of the night to pump gas for the big trucks passing through. Dad
and Mom loved to hunt and fish; that was their favorite pastime. Dad sold
minnows for fish bait. They raised chickens and always had a big garden.
There was a well outside the back door of the restaurant which produced sulfur
water that had a foul odor. Many came to drink it for its healing properties.
There was a big boiler building attached to the back of the restaurant which
heated both the restaurant and the house. There was a walk between the two
properties which was traveled often. One day the boiler exploded. No one was
injured but many people came to see it.
Mom’s schoolmate, Clara Lyons, lived on a farm in Grant County. She never
married, so she spent a few winters with us helping with the housework and
taking care of us. She and Mom always kept in contact through the years.
Dad carried the mail from Moorefield to Romney, West Virginia, for a period of time, a distance of approximately 27 miles. A few
times I rode with him and would shop for clothes in the nearby stores while he
was working with the mail. Then we would have lunch on the way home.
Dad and another businessman built and operated for several years the first
drive-in theater in West Virginia. We were young teenagers, so we were able to
help with small jobs at the theaters in the evenings. We also enjoyed many good
movies. We lived in the above location for approximately 12 years before Dad
rented this property.
They purchased a nice brick home with some cabins on four acres of land outside
of town during the big flood of 1949. (The flood had caused damage to both
properties.) It had a circle driveway
between the house and the cabins. It didn’t take dad too long to make the first
cabin into a small store and gas station. When dad was on a trout fishing trip
in Pennsylvania, he discovered his first frozen custard; he ordered the
equipment needed as soon as he arrived home. He and Mom made the first frozen
custard in the area, and most were made from fresh fruit in season. They would
travel to nearby orchards to pick fresh fruit — peaches, cherries, and apples.
Mom had a large loom on which she wove beautiful rugs for the family and sold
many of them for many others to enjoy.
Dale Flinn and I were married one half-hour before we graduated from high school
on May 17, 1951. We were married in the Methodist Church by the minister, and
his son was the pianist, and our mothers were the only other attendants. Dad
surprised us with a wedding cake and a friend who took photos of us after
graduation.
We moved to a chicken farm seven miles north of Moorefield. We lived there for
two years. During those two years Dale took a home study course from the New
York Institute of Photography before moving to Parkersburg, West Virginia, to
pursue a photography career. We had two children by 1956, Steve and Terri.
Russ graduated from Shepherd College with a degree in biology and worked in the
state of West Virginia before moving to Florida and starting his family. Ervin
had several jobs before moving to Virginia and starting his family. He worked
for the District of Columbia Fire Department until his retirement.
In the mid-1950s Dad went to Florida and found a job in a drug store. Mom stayed
in Moorefield to sell their house and household items. They bought a house with
a few cabins just outside of Jacksonville. Our family spent their first
Christmas in Florida with Mom, Dad, and Russ. Steve was 6 years old, and Terri
was a two-year-old. Dad went to the back lot and cut down a pine Christmas tree.
After several years they sold that place and bought a nice home and motel in
Ocala, Florida. They lived there for several years before moving to Apopka,
where Daddy had several jobs, including working for a group that raised
honeybees. During this time, he developed prostate cancer and was treated with
chemotherapy. As his health grew worse, they sold this place and moved to a
mobile home park near Deland, Florida, where my brother Russ and his family
lived.
Dad and Mom continued to fish with family and friends, and liked to go on
picnics for as long as they were able. They also attended several Methodist
churches in Florida. They donated a large cross for the top of one of the
churches. Daddy went to Heaven on September 24, 1974. Mom and I were in the
hospital at that time and Russ had been with him the night before.
Mom lived alone for seven years, and she met a retired coal miner from West
Virginia named “Slim” Kellar. They were married on May 4, 1980, and moved to
another mobile home out in the country. They enjoyed five years together until
he was killed in a car wreck. Mom moved back to the mobile home park near town.
She enjoyed riding her large three-wheel bike there. She had worn out two of
them, and for her 80th birthday asked for a new one — and she got
one. She thought riding her bike helped to keep her legs healthy. She also
helped deliver mail to the other older people in the park. But in November 1988
she had two heart attacks on her two last bike rides. The doctor said she had to
stop riding her bike. The family thought I needed to stay with her, so I left my
home in West Virginia at the end of November 1988, and stayed with her until May
17, 1989, our wedding anniversary. Dale wanted me to help him in the studio that
summer.
My brother Russ lived just a half hour from Mom and could check in with her. She
was also set up with a system where she was checked on each night and morning.
Mom wrote me a letter in June of 1989 in which she said she woke up from a nap
and beside her chair stood a large angel who reached from the floor to the
ceiling fan. She said it was like a flash of lightning. I thought Mom would not
be afraid to live alone now.
On July 9 Mom did not make her night call, but they didn’t check with her until
she didn’t call the next morning. They sent a neighbor over and he found her
still sitting in her chair, looking like she was asleep. But she had already
gone to Heaven and the letter she had been writing to her special lifelong
friend Clara had slid from her lap to the floor. She had written on both sides
of the paper but had never signed the letter. The only negative line in the
letter was she said, “Jean will be back after Labor Day if I hold out that
long.” The letter had news about our son Steve and his family who had visited
her, and the latest news about her sister and brother — a very newsy letter. The
date on her death certificate and on her last letter is the same: July 9, 1989.
This is a tribute to Mom and Dad for their love and care through the years.
Merry Christmas to all and a blessed New Year.
Jean Flinn
December 2023
