Reprinted from the August 2008 AARP Chapter 799 Newsletter

“My Life”…

— by Helen Clark (Jones) Geary

     I was born on June 11, 1913, in rural Clarke County, VA; the only child of Carrol Rudolph Jones and Lettie Esther (Clark) Jones.  When I was six years old, we moved to a 90½ acre farm my father bought in Jefferson County, WV, located between Bakerton and Molers Cross Roads.  I attended elementary school in Bakerton and went to Harpers Ferry High School until the latter part of my junior year when I had to quit school to help my parents on the farm.

     On September 6, 1934, I married James Norman “Bud” Geary of Bakerton and embarked on a career as a farmer’s wife and mother to our four children:  Norma (born 1937), Esther (born 1941), William “Buck” (born 1944) and Dorothy “Dottie” (born 1946).

     My husband and I were tenant farmers for the first years of our marriage until he was able to buy a 50-acre farm near my parents’ farm.  He sold it in 1947 and we moved to my home place when my parents retired from farming and deeded the property to me.  They spent their retirement life in their Shepherdstown, and then Martinsburg, home during the summer months and at their home in Homestead, FL, during the winter months.  My mother died in 1957 and my father died in 1966.

     In the early years, I helped my husband with all the farm chores including milking the herd of cows twice a day, feeding and tending to the work horses, slopping the hogs, feeding the chickens and gathering eggs from the hen house, taking care of the beef cattle, and planting crops in the fields.  Many times, I rode on the drag, corn planter, hay rake, hay tedder, and binder behind my husband and the team of horses – and I also helped shuck corn from the shocks in the field – in addition to the household chores that I had to do on a daily basis.  Eventually, the acquisition of modern farm machinery and the help of hired hands made time a little more manageable for me.  Still, there were three meals a day to prepare, the garden to tend, vegetables and fruits to can for winter use, the house to keep clean, four children to raise, etc., etc.

     It wasn’t until the children were grown and three of them had left home that I got a seasonal job as an apple trimmer at C.H. Musselman Company in Inwood and worked there for 15 years.  After downsizing on the farm and semi-retiring, my husband and I also worked part-time for lifelong friends/neighbors, Frank & Nellie Kidwiler, at Kidwiler’s Butchering Shop – he helped with the butchering and I helped package the meat for sale.

     Upon the death of my husband in 1974, I subdivided the farm and my daughter, Norma, and I moved into a new, smaller house on five acres that I retained.  We put in a garden (on a much smaller scale) and kept ourselves busy with yard work in the summer – along with taking bus trips; working on crafts of all kinds (needlepoint; cross-stitch; latch hook; plastic canvas; macramé; beads; etc.); knitting; crocheting; sewing; reading; and attending church, club, & organizational meetings.

     In 1990, I sold it and Norma and I moved into a ground floor, two-bedroom rental apartment in Charles Town, where we lived until my daughter, Esther, moved us into her home in June 1995.  Norma and I enjoyed being able to have a little garden again, flower beds to tend, a porch swing to relax in, and many of the things we’d missed having at the apartment.  Plus, I still had my car and drove us wherever we wanted to go.  After Norma died in 2000, I started travelling with Esther and finally sold my car and gave up driving altogether in 2003.

     I’ve been a member of the Methodist Church since I was 12 years old and formerly served on the Pastor/Parish Relations Committee and the Church Administrative Board.  Presently, I attend Sunday services at Asbury United Methodist Church in Charles Town.  I’ve been a member of the Molers Community Educational Outreach Service (CEOS) since 1967; a member of AARP since 1973 and of Chapter 799 since 1988.  I’m a member of the Women of the Moose and a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.  In the late ‘80s, I served a term of office on the Board of Directors of the Jefferson County Council on Aging and participated in daily activities at the Senior Center for many years.  In recent years, I’ve been honored to be dubbed “VIP Mama” of the Panhandlers Square Dance Club in Martinsburg and of the Mountaineer Twirlers Square Dance Group in Ranson.

     There was no time for vacations on the farm, but travels in my “golden years” have included road trips to national parks and points of interest in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and to Montreal & Quebec, Canada.  Also, I’ve taken cruises to Cozumel, Mexico, and to the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. John, St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Great Stirrup Cay Bahamas.

     I am the proud grandmother of two grandsons, one granddaughter, three great-grandsons, two great-granddaughters, and one great-great-granddaughter.

     My health is reasonably good in spite of failing eyesight and hearing loss but, overall, I feel I’m not doing too badly for an OLD lady.  I look forward to the dawn of each day and to having fun with my family and friends.

     “Life is GOOD!”