Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Historic Monarch Mill-Mt. Sterling, Ky.


Built in the 1880s, the Monarch Mill building continues to be a reminder of Mt. Sterling’s rich history.

                                          Photo below from wiki media.org, taken May 2014.

An ad from an old newspaper clipping from 1884 indicates the owners of the Badger, Henry and Company also owned the roller mill that was located on Montgomery Street in Sharpsburg.


Milling around the past
During its heyday, the Monarch Mill in Mt. Sterling was the center of flourishing activity as local farmers brought their wheat, corn and other grains to be processed and sold.
Located on the corner of South Maysville and East Locust, the historic building that housed the mill still stands as a reminder of the towns rich history and is currently owned by the Montgomery County Extension Service.
The mill was constructed in the late 1880s in the Classic Revival style and was owned by Badger, Henry and Company.
C. H. Petry and William S. Lloyd owned the business in 1892 and changed the name to Monarch Milling Company where they made such products as the Monarch, Crown and Anchor flours.
Just a few years later, the mill claimed to have the largest gasoline engines in the state to operate the grinding.

In 1918 Robert Collier purchased William S. Lloyds interest in the mill according to the American Miller Magazine.
Collier lived on Richmond Avenue with his wife Mary, their children, Mary Elizabeth and Robert Jr. and in 1940 he still owned and managed the mill and his daughter was his bookkeeper.
Originally the site consisted of the flour mill with the grain elevator and storage building being added around 1916 and the hay and feed building between 1914 and 1929.
According to the National Registry of Historical Places, the flour mill was the first structure built by the milling company on the site and is a three-story, brick, flat-roofed building.
Prior to 1940 the brick walls on the south and west sides were stucco with unpainted cement.
The main block of the building has three bays separated by brick pilasters.
The entrance to the flour mill contains a double leaf door with a segmentally arched transom.
Attached to the flour mill on the south side is a one-story, two-bay building with a flat roof which was labeled "office" on the 1886 Sanborn map.
This part of the building became the engine room in 1908 after a new office was added to the Locust Street frontage.

East of the original office is a three-bay, one-story brick building which is also shown on the 1886 Sanborn map and houses the 60-horsepower coal-fired engine which ran the mill.
A wood platform which is no longer standing connected the flour mill with the office.
The first floor on the East Locust Street frontage has a projection on the east side which covers two bays of the main block of the building and has 2/2 windows capped by stone lintels. It was added between 1895 and 1901 and is labeled as the office on the1901 Sanborn map. The former office on the south side of the building became an oil room and storage.
South of the flour mill building is a metal clad building composed of a shed-roofed three-story section and two-story gable roofed section. The three-story section is labeled as grain elevator and the two-story section as warehouse on the 1890 Sanborn map.

In 1895, a metal covering was added to the north wall of the elevator and in 1914 the metal covering is shown on all the walls of the elevator/ warehouse building.
South of this building and unconnected to the mill, was a frame flour, salt, and sugar warehouse owned by the Trimble Brothers Wholesale Grocery.
The Trimble Brothers warehouse was removed by 1914.
In 1886, the property between the flour mill and the corner of Maysville and Locust was occupied by one-story frame buildings housing a cobbler, blacksmith, and wood shop.
These buildings remained on the corner until 1908 when the McDonald Brothers Coal and Feed Company built a frame complex on the corner.
The coal and feed company was gone by 1914.
The Monarch Milling Company is significant as the only extant example of the processing industries established in Mt. Sterling in the late nineteenth century.
It is an example of the historic context Industry and Transportation in Mt. Sterling, 1870-1940. Processing industries rose in importance for Mt. Sterling after the town became the railhead of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad in 1872.
The complex is composed of three buildings and demonstrates how the industrial facility grew over a fifty-year period while remaining a vital local business.

The flour mill first appears on the Sanborn Insurance Maps in 1886 and the hay and feed building was in place by 1929.
The site is an example of the mill property type in the historical context Industry and Transportation in Mt. Sterling 1780-1940. It meets the property type's registration requirements because it possesses integrity of location through its relationship to the railroad. For integrity of design, the porch additions and changes to windows have not obscured the forms of the buildings and their relationship to one another.

The change in exterior fabric through the addition of pressed metal, is an historic alteration
and was made on many mills during the period.
Most of the changes to the building have occurred around the window and doorway.
Part of the transom has been filled in on the entry at the corner of South Maysville and Locust and the glazing in the doubled windows on the S. Maysville side have been replaced with multiple panes.
Although the shed roof of what was an open breezeway joining the hay and feed building to the flour mill has been in place since 1929, the brick walls enclosing it have been added since 1940.

During those rolling years of prosperity, the Monarch Milling Company was reported to have shipped about 15, 000 pounds of four per week.
A notation in the early 1900s edition of the “American Miller” magazine, reported that Crown and Monarch was the celebrated flour brands of housewives all over Central and North Eastern Kentucky.
As the Montgomery County Farmers Market gets underway near the old C.& O. train depot, and with plans for the Extension Service to utilize the Historic Monarch Mill, an area that played such an important role in the history of the town will be alive with vibrant activity just as it was all those years ago.

Dulin Hill School- Fleming County Ky.



Students at the Washington School on Dulin Hill, Maysville Road, Fleming County, Kentucky during the mid to late 1920s. Among the students are Orville Carpenter, Frances Carpenter Blair and Jeune Carpenter Bake. For those who recall Miss Bess Ross, this was one of her early schools to teach. The one-room school was located on the boundary of Campbell farm (former Arthur Gorman farm). Photo courtesy of Evelyn Pearl Carpenter


A walk to remember Fleming County’s Dulin Hill School

While working on her family tree, Evelyn Pearl Carpenter Anderson has pieced together information that helps document the people and places of Fleming County’s past.
One interesting piece of local history is that of the Dulin Hill School, where Evelyn Pearls father, Orville Jones Carpenter, and his siblings obtained their early education.
The late Jeune Carpenter Baker, a sister to Evelyn’s father, attended the Dulin Hill school from 1931 to 1940 and sent the following memory to Evelyn to add to their family’s genealogy.

“I walked to Dulin Hill school with my brother D.R. It was several miles over fields and fields and we had to climb fences to go from one field to the next.
Spring and fall seasons were not bad, but winter was no fun. Often, when we reached the building, our fingers and toes were just short of frost bite.
There was a pot-bellied stove where we were instructed to sit until we warmed up and the teacher had a basin of very cold water, and even snow if there was any, into which we put our fingers until they gradually began to feel normal.

The school sat on a hillside, surrounded by a huge pasture which served as a playground for recess and grazing areas for any horses that brought students and teacher to school.
Our teacher arrived early. I believe someone from Flemingsburg brought her or maybe she roomed in the home of one of her students, which was very typical.
It was her responsibility to keep the classroom clean, the fire going in the stove and water in the bucket for drinking and brought up from the well on the property.
Our teacher solicited the older boys to help her with these tasks.
She was hired by a trustee system which was led by my dad.
Her name was Kate Breen and we called her Ms. Kate.
The school had one large room which you entered through a small closet-like room we called the cloakroom.

There were hangers for coats, etc., and shelves where we stored our lunch bags.
The water bucket with one dipper for all, had a shelf of its own.
A wall to wall blackboard in the large classroom was opposite the cloakroom.
There was an American flag in a corner and pictures of Washington and Lincoln above the board.
Desks were arranged in rows and two students occupied the double desks which were bolted to the floor.
There were recitation benches at the front of the room and the teacher’s desk was centered near the chalkboard.
Ms. Kate sat at her desk and called students to the front when it was their time for lessons, grade one or Primer, went first.
There were not many students per class.

I remember when I was done reciting, I would listen to the others and consequently I became a very good speller.
I was extremely bored and often practiced reading with words upside down and backwards.
We had no science or social studies instruction and our music consisted of songs we knew and shared.
We delighted in doing Christmas plays and learned our parts, so we could perform for our parents.
At recess times, we played “Andy Over” with a ball we threw over the school, Tag, Kick the Can, Red Rover, just to name a few.
Sometimes some of the older boys got in tussles and Ms. Kate had to intervene. I don’t remember that she ever flogged anyone, but she gave writing exercises for the guilty and misbehaving students were made to stand with their noses pointed into the chalked circle on the chalkboard. I don’t remember having a dunce cap.

The outhouse was a two-holer and we were instructed to use it one at a time and always at recess.
If there was an emergency, we held up one finger or two.
I stayed at Dulin Hill through my seventh grade, then all the county schools were consolidated into the main Fleming County School system and we were bused to Flemingsburg.
Because I had been involved in our own school’s spelling bees for 7 years, and could spell all the words given, I represented Fleming County in the statewide spelling bee in Louisville, Kentucky.

The editor of the Flemingsburg Times Democrat, John Kelly Ryan and his wife took me.
What a treat for a country bumpkin.
Needless to say, I didn’t compete well with the other more progressive schools.
My experience at Dulin Hill was certainly unlike any I would have had in the Fleming County schools.
I was superior in reading and language skills but very deficient in social studies, science and art. If I had not had teachers who believed in my potential, I would have failed. Instead I excelled in all except geography. Later my husband Jack taught me how to read a map”.
Noted in the Prater family book complied by Evelyn Pearls cousin, Mary Blair Hamm “The Carpenter children either walked to the Dulin Hill School or rode their horse “Old Nell”, the distance of about two miles.
It is through first-hand stories such as these that helps paint a picture of what life was like for our ancestors and adds an extra touch to the history of our hometown communities.


The Arrasmith Family






                             
                                        Arrasmith family members, Anna Ware, Alta, Robert and his sister Ina D.
 
       The log cabin in Bethel, built by William around 1790, was home sweet home to four generations of Arrasmiths



                                                    Ewell Arrasmith pitching hay on the family farm.

                                                            Mrs. Evelyn, Anna Ware and Ewell Arrasmith

                                                                             Miss Anna Ware Arrasmith
                                              Photos are from the private collection of Mrs. Irene Thornsburg.
                                 Ewell and his dad housing tobacco on their farm in Bethel
                              Mrs. Evelyn driving the tractor during housing season, and in HIGH HEELS!!

From Virginia to Bethel-the story of the Arrasmith family

The family of Ewell Arrasmith has a long and rich history as residents in the town of Bethel.
Many of our readers will remember Ewell’s wife, Evelyn, as a music teacher at the Bethel and Sharpsburg schools and his sister Anna Ware who taught at Bethel for nearly 50 years.

A little more than a dozen years ago, Evelyn penned a series of articles that appeared in The Community Voice, a newspaper that is no longer in print, in which she told how the Arrasmith family came to live at Bethel 229 years ago.
In her story Evelyn revealed that William Arrasmith built a log cabin around 1790 on property he acquired through a land grant from Benedict Swope,  a time when Kentucky was still a part of Virginia.

She described the structure as “instead of being built as one log dwelling, it was built as two, one larger than the other with a passage called a “dog-walk between them. There was an attic above the larger one with a little stairway in the middle of the room. A large fire place was on the west wall with a door on the south side. The windows were glass. One pane even had a butterfly imprint in it. The cabin had a shingle roof, the fireplace chimneys were made of rock from bottom to top and the dwelling faced south, and the ground had a gentle slope downward where there was a good spring with another spring close by”.

William, born in 1762, who was the son of Thomas Arrasmith, married Susannah McBee in Fauquier, Virginia.
Susannah and William’s son John was born in the winter of 1802 in Bath County and is described in Evelyn’s article as being a large man that weighed about 300 pounds, a hard worker, kind and was very sociable.

The story revealed that John was a bachelor and according to family history, one day he saw a young lady hoeing corn in a nearby field, he watched her for a bit and decided she was a good worker and would make an excellent wife. Her name was Sarah Jones and was called “Sally”.
Sally and John married and started a life together in the cabin and were the parents of 12 children, but as was common in those days, many of them died at an early age.

Their daughter Roberta died the same day their youngest child, Daniel Day was born.
The oldest child was Miranda, born 1833, she married Dawson Williams, Nancy, 1834, married Coleman Crouch, William was born next in 1837 and died in 1850, Susanna born in 1838, married Harvey Satterfield, Thomas, died the same year he was born in 1841, next came John Wes, 1842, he died when he was 30, Richard, 1844, died in 1906 and Mary Emily,1846 died in 1866, Edmond Valentine, 1848-1897, Elizabeth 1851-1885, Roberta was born in 1852 and died when she was two years old, and Daniel Duty-1854-1916.

In the 1870 census John is listed with the following household members, his wife Sarah, their children John W. Richard, Edward, Elizabeth, and Daniel, along with their domestic help, Charity Williams age 29, and possibly her children, Larkin, Jenny, Eliza and Susan.
Charity, was affectionately referred to as “Aunt Charity” and one of her children was born beneath the little cabins kitchen window.

Evelyn’s articles went on to reveal more of the Arrasmith family history in the following manner.
“While John was busy with his farming, Sarah was busy with her household chores which included spinning and weaving.

Her spinning wheel has the date 1845 carved on it. She had a cherry cupboard which stood in the south-west corner of the big room where she kept her jams and jellies.
John wasn’t a hunter as such, but he did own a rifle which one of his descendants has today.
Beneath the stairs there was a small cupboard where molasses, flour, mill, sugar and whiskey were kept.
Sometime in the early 1800s the cabins logs were covered with weather boarding.
In 1881 Daniel Duty married Sudie Wilson, the daughter of George Wilson.
John had passed away in 1885 and Dan and Sudie continued to live with Sarah until her death in 1890.
Sudie was more accustomed to living in a more modern home, so after Sarah’s death she began to make some changes.
First, she had workmen take out the log wall of the big room that ran along the dog-walk, then she had a door cut out of the kitchen wall.
She had each end of the dog-walk boxed in and portioned in half at the stairway to make two rooms, and the porch roof was lowered from beneath the attic windows. 
Sudie could now go from the front of the house to the kitchen without having to go outside.
Sudie and Daniels first child, Ina D, was born in 1887, Robert Ware came along two years later and George Bruce in 1895 and sometime after his birth the family moved to a home on Bethel Avenue.
From 1898 to 1907 there were other families that had lived in the little cabin which included Bill Dwelly, Bill Day, Major Clark, Tom Lloyd, Pat and Jim Hickey and Willy Peters.

After Robert married Alta Robinson Vice in the spring of 1913 they started their married life in the cabin, but before they married he and his sister Ina D. painted the front room a soft green and the middle room a French grey. Ina D hung a little pony shoe she had tied with a pink ribbon over the door in the middle room.
Over the years the couple made additional improvements to the home.
With the help of Bill Clark, an African American friend and neighbor, whom the family referred to as Uncle Bill, the fireplace in the front room was closed just enough to add a grate, a process known as “setting the grate” so coal could be used to burn for heat instead of logs.

A flu was built in the kitchen with an opening not only on the kitchen side but also through the middle room, so a parlor furnace could be used in the middle room.
Rob closed in the little room off the kitchen to make a dining room with a pantry. He also had a cistern built at the back door.

Robert and Alta were the parents of two children, Anna Ware born in 1914 and Ewell Roberts in 1918.
Anna Ware was a great favorite of Dan’s and he could be found carrying her across the hill to his home on the avenue, where she enjoyed the attention of her grandmother Sudie, aunt Ina D. and uncle Bruce.
Dan died in 1916 so he never knew his grandson Ewell.
Both children attended college, Anna Ware became a teacher and taught school at Bethel for nearly 50 years and never married.
Ewell also taught school for a short time before entering the military in 1941. He was in the Air Force and stationed in Alaska during WWII.

In August of 1945 he married a girl he met in college and when he was discharged from service the last of October, Rob brought his bride to live at Bethel.
Evelyn grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and the Arrasmith family wondered how she would take to country life.
When Ewell discovered she loved antiques and old things, he offered her Sarah’s spinning wheel, reel and clock for a wedding gift.
Since the clock and spinning wheel had been stored in the attic of the cabin, Evelyn wanted to clean them up which was fine with Rob, but he did ask that one detail on the clock remain.
He told her that George Pringles mother had purchased the clock at Sarah’s estate sale and years later George had brought the clock back saying it belonged in the family.
Someone had pasted an image of their race on the glass door and he asked Evelyn to leave the image in place.

After Rob and Alta moved into their home on land that adjoined the Arrasmith property in 1948, Ewell and Evelyn became the 4th generation to live in the family cabin.
Ewell enjoyed woodworking and built their eating table and chairs and new kitchen cabinets that were fashioned after the ones in Evelyn’s grandmother’s kitchen.
In 1959 the couple began to make more repairs to the home, the porch got new floorboards and a railing was added.
They painted the house grey with white trim, Rob gave them some shudders that had been painted white and the roof was painted a barn red”.
The little cabin is no longer standing, Ewell, Evelyn and Anna Ware have each passed away, but their history still remains in the hearts of many of the Bethel citizens.

Railroad Relics


Renovations of a Railroad Relic



                 An early post card of the C & O Train station in downtown Mt. Sterling, Ky.
The C.& O. Train Depot as it looks today, still has the potential to deliver additional charm and character to Mt. Sterling’s downtown area.

This 1879 map shows the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy RR to Mt. Sterling, as well as the Mt. Sterling Coal Road to Rothwell. It was drawn before the Elizabethtown; Lexington & Big Sandy RR was extended from Mt. Sterling to Ashland.


A relic of Mt. Sterling’s by-gone days still stands as a monument to the town’s historic past; an iconic symbol that foretells the importance of what railroads meant to small town life.

Built in 1910, the Chesapeake and Ohio train depot was the hub of the community  and was built on the C & O line that ran between Lexington and Ashland, Ky.
According to the information on file for the National Registry for Historic Places, the Chiles-Thompson Grocery Company sold a lot on the east side of South Maysville St. to the C & O Railroad for the construction of a Passenger Station. The railroad acquired another lot from H. Clay McKee with the stipulation that the Passenger Depot be midway between Bank and S. Maysville St.

A “passenger shed” or covered-way extended from the Passenger Depot to Bank Street and a baggage depot was built west of the Passenger Station.
An article written by Kenn Johnson in 2008 told of how Katie Bowles, a Montgomery County high school student, had taken notice of the dilapidated depot and thought it needed to be renovated.

Johnson’s article stated that Katie, along with two of her friends, Brittany Hackworth and Suzie Bellot, stepped up to the challenge and spearheaded a project that soon became a schoolwide mission and became a hands-on learning experience for both students and teachers.
Johnsons article went on to say, “math students at MCHS were given geometry assignments dealing with the enterprise, social studies students researched the history of the station, and the English Department began work on a coffee-table book about the depot while accounting students kept track of expenditures.
But the main help came from the carpentry and Skills USA students who did the actual day-to-day work under the guidance of instructor Jeff McCarty.

The Walker Construction Co. provided heavy equipment to haul away concrete and other debris. Rumpke of Kentucky provided a dumpster and the Mount Sterling city and street departments have also provided equipment and support.
He said that the students discovered” a boatload of information when they got inside the building and were fascinated with the old receipts, train schedules and newspapers they found.

The Montgomery County Historical Society replaced the roof several years ago. Memorabilia from the station can be seen at the MCHS Museum.
The Chesapeake and Ohio line was a mainstay for Mount Sterling passengers, but the Lexington and Big Sandy was its earliest antecedent, established in 1852.
At first, trains went only to Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati, but after the 1880s, the local line was linked to the east coast.

Mount Sterling's depot was built around 1910, and it became a major market center for goods from the East and Southeast.
Some older residents can remember nostalgic school trips, visits to doctors in larger cities, returning home for the holidays from college and watching the George Washington puff to a stop at the depot in the afternoon.

The last passenger train left the station on May 1, 1971, although a steam engine pulled an excursion passenger train for one last trip on July 4, 1979.
Freight service ceased on June 30, 1985, ending 115 years of rail service to Mount Sterling.

The most historic moment at the train station, Johnson’s story related, occurred in 1948, when 5,000 people gathered by the rails to hear President Harry Truman as he campaigned on his famous whistle-stop tour”.
The C & O Passenger Train Depot still stands as a reminder of Mt. Sterling’s rich history and has the potential to deliver additional character and charm to the community’s downtown district.






Thursday, March 31, 2016

Prudence Ann Gulley


While there are women like Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojourner Truth who have rightfully earned their place in history, there are others who have become heroes in their own right. 
In homes across America, there are many females who have quietly made historical contributions to the family’s and communities they served.
One of Bath County’s guiding lights was Prudence Ann Wilson, born September 8, 1925, to Edgar and Mamie Taylor Wilson. She married her sweetheart, Owens Gulley in the early 1950s.
Mrs. Ann Gulley was a leader, a mover and a shaker. She not only taught her children to be self sufficient, well respected adults, she also greatly influenced many of the neighborhood kids as well.
Mrs. Ann’s wisdom, humor and down-to-earth personality continues to live on in the memories of all those who knew and loved her.
Sharpsburg native Mary Beth Lane said there are three things that come to mind when she thinks of Mrs. Ann; she loved the Lord, her church, her family,friends, a good joke, and she was always the first to arrive with a plate of food during times of sorrow or joy.
Nephews, Bruce and Ben Taylor said she was a strong willed , down-to-earth woman who was always in your corner and many a problem was solved on the front porch swing.
Even after her death in 1998, her three children, Lynn Ray, Lu Ann and Nancy utilize the lessons of life learned from their mother.
Her son Lynn Ray Gulley grew up to be a pediatrician and lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
“No one incident jumps out when I think of my mother's influence on my life but there are four things I learned from her through verbal communication and often by example that continue to be an integral part of my life to this day. 
 1)- You can be anything you want in life but you have to be willing to work hard. Dreams come true with hard work!
 2)- Don't buy anything you can't afford. 
 3)- All people deserve your respect. I was raised in the late 50's and the 60's in an environment that didn't always respect people who were different.Whether you were black, white, poor, of a different religion or handicapped she taught me to respect everyone and their beliefs. Imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same.
 4) It is okay to disagree with someone if you felt you were right.
These four things have served me well for 63 years. They were instilled in my life with love, a lot of patience, and when necessary (which was probably more often than I was willing to admit) the wrath of God and Prudence Ann Gulley,” Lynn said.
Daughters Nancy, w ho works at the Sharpsburg Citizen’s Bank and Lu Ann, Deputy Clerk at the Bath County Circuit Clerk’s Office, both live in the community where they grew up and each said they continued their mother’s wisdom when it came to rearing their own children.
Mrs. Ann believed whole heartily that family, friends and community were the staples of a great life and she lived by that rule.
“Mom was a great teacher when it came to treating people right”, Nancy said. “She was a firm believer that everyone deserved our respect. She loved to laugh and have fun. One thing I remember that was awesome; she was the best scary story teller in Sharpsburg! When I was around 9 or ten years old, all the neighbor kids would gather at nights on our front porch and wait for the supper dishes to be done and for mommy to come out and sit on the porch swing to tell them elaborate stories about fire witches and footprints leading up to houses in the snow and things that the kids would soak up in their minds and we're scared to walk home.One day she got a call from one of the parents asking her not to tell such scary stories because both her boys wouldn't sleep in their beds.Mom was always happy to help out with fun community events. She coordinated the Tom Thumb wedding they had at Bethel one year. She taught Sunday school at the Christian church for years. She along with others did many a float for May Day and was part of the planning crew for the big Sharpsburg high school reunion back in the early 90's.One year we made a Jolly Green Giant float, Bruce Taylor was the giant and I was a big red tomato. She loved helping out at school parties and was always there to help out at chili suppers and PTA fundraisers”, Nancy recalled.
Learning to cook and to watch over your neighbors were a couple of things that come to mind when LuAnn remembers her mother teaching her.
“She was a wonderful cook who was one of the first to take food and lend an ear to a family that had lost a loved one. She made sure Nancy and Lynn and I, knew how to cook. We had to learn to make biscuits from scratch, cut up a chicken and make a pie. She wanted us to be self sufficient, take care of ourselves and not be dependent on anyone else”, LuAnn remembered. “She left us a letter for after she passed and in it she said, "Don't argue over material things. Things wear out, love never wears out."  .
She loved people and never met a stranger. She was a girl scout leader with Ms. Elizabeth Reed back in the 1970s. We had a day camp on Marvin Calvert’s farm with a sleepover on the last night.  
She drove an old truck out of there and Ms. Elizabeth was sitting on the bed and bounced right out on the ground.  
She taught us how to cook over a campfire and we earned lots of badges at that camp.  
She was a Sunday school teacher at Sharpsburg Christian church and had so much fun at vacation bible schools. Anywhere she went she had fun. When my son Daniel was in grade school she danced on the stage to the Macarena and all the kids loved it. She and Mary Bruce Wilson went to a fashion show in Lexington and Mary Bruce won a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Mommy took her to the show so Mary B took her to Mexico. I drove them to Lexington to meet the group and they kept thinking it was all a big hoax. It ended up being one of the best memories of her life. Mommy was the “Tater town” doctor. She pulled many a tooth, cleaned wounds and was ready to whip a kid into shape if they needed it” LuAnn said.
In addition to being a full time parent, Ann also helped keep the books and answer phone calls for her husband’s business. She also worked as a teller at the Citizen’s Bank of Sharpsburg, and Green Thumb.
Through the memories of her children and grandchildren, the legacy of one of Sharpsburg’s most beloved citizens will live on. Even though Ann Wilson Gulley’s name may not be written in the history books, her contributions continue to serve as a reminder that hard work, self reliance, and the concern for family, and friends will always make for a better society.