 1931 - (93 years)
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| Name |
GOODRICH Doris Jean |
| Birth |
2 Jan 1931 |
Dendron, Surry, Virginia, United States  [1] |
- Born on the Benjamin Taylor Goodrich, Jr. farm, which was originally part of Snow Hill.
|
| Gender |
Female |
| Address |
Address:
Doris Jean GOODRICH |
| Submitter |
HIGH |
| Baptism |
26 Apr 1964 |
Dendron, VA (Dendron Baptist Church) |
| Descendant Interest |
HIGH |
| Lat/Long |
Johnson Home |
- 37° 5' 11.9760 77° 2' 51.6120"
|
| Living In |
Mar 1965 |
Waverly, Surry County, VA (Doris Jean Home, Rt. 40) |
| Living In Home Since 1965 |
| Occupation |
1988 |
Waverly, Sussex County, VA |
| Retired Farm Credit Assoc |
| Phone |
804-834-2104 |
| Reference Number |
108 |
| Notes |
- Baptized into Dendron Baptist Church 4/26/1964 coming from Waverly Methodist.
Transferred church membership to Carsley Methodist in 1991.
Dtd: 4 Jun 90 Letter received from Edwin R. BoothP. O. Box 907, Longview, Tx 75601(214) 753-3004 home 757-3131 Edwin R. Booth InsAgency (retired)Home Address: 106 Betty Dr., Songview(??), Tx on August 20, 1973: He received the family geneology and he isTalmadge Booth's brother, Edwin. He is compliling a book of the boothfamily. 'Our great, great, grandfather, Robert Booth (brother of yourgreat great grandfather, Col. Samuel Booth, of Snow Hill Plantation, leftSurry County in 1814 and settled in Troup County, Georgia. Then one of his sons left Georgia in 1853 and settled in the Piney Woods section ofEast Texas, where our family has been ever since.' Doris Jean lives across from Snow Hill, which is part of the original plantation. Edwin says that Troup County, Georgia and their part of East Texas is almost are production of the Snow Hill area. Book was to be published in 1974.Doris Personal Info: Doris Jean started dating Shirley in Sep 1948. And she graduated from Waverly High School in June 1949. Doris was employedby Southside Va PCA and FLBA in Waverly in March 1950. She and Shirley were engaged in July 1951 before he was deployed to Germany by the U S Army. She married him 12 days after his return. They lived in a 3 room rented apt in the home of Bob & Edna Slade on Rt. 31 in Dendron for the first 15 months. They then moved to a rented house halfway between Dendron and Elberon on Rt. 31 that was owned by Mrs. A.T. Sowder in March 1954.They moved to the current homeplace/farm in March 1965
Dtd: 4 Jun 90 Letter received from Edwin R. BoothP. O. Box 907, Longview, Tx 75601(214) 753-3004 home 757-3131 Edwin R. Booth Ins Agency (retired)Home Address: 106 Betty Dr., Songview(??), Tx on August 20, 1973: He received the family geneology and he isTalmadge Booth's brother, Edwin. He is compliling a book of the boothfamily. 'Our great, great, grandfather, Robert Booth (brother of yourgreat great grandfather, Col. Samuel Booth, of Snow Hill Plantation, leftSurry County in 1814 and settled in Troup County, Georgia. Then one ofhis sons left Georgia in 1853 and settled in the Piney Woods section ofEast Texas, where our family has been ever since.' Doris Jean lives acrossfrom Snow Hill, which is part of the original plantation. Edwin says thatTroup County, Georgia and their part of East Texas is almost areproduction of the Snow Hill area. Book was to be published in 1974.Doris Personal Info: Doris Jean started dating Shirley in Sep 1948. Andshe graduated from Waverly High School in June 1949. Doris was employedby Southside Va PCA and FLBA in Waverly in March 1950. She and Shirleywere engaged in July 1951 before he was deployed to Germany by the USArmy. She married him 12 days after his return. They l;ived in a 3 roomrented apt in the home of Bob & Edna Slade on Rt. 31 in dendron for thefirst 15 months. They then moved to a rented house halfway between dendronand Elberon on Rt. 31 that was owned by Mrs. A.T. Sowder in March 1954.They moved to the current homeplace/farm in March 1965 Retired Farm Credit Associations of Waverly, VP Finance
Her history from a leter from Doris Jean on 4-4-2006:
Doris Jean Goodrich was born to Benjamin Taylor Goodrich, Jr. and his wife, Mabel Pearl Westbrook Goodrich during the Depression in 1931. Jean was the youngest of five children and the only one born in the house they built on the farm he purchased November 1921. Located across the road from Snow Hill, the farm was once part of Snow Hill Plantation before it was partitioned (divided) among heirs. Before, they lived in a small house near Avery's Mill Pond on a farm Daddy owned called "Gilliam" which was once a part of the B. B. Goodrich farm that was also divided among heirs. In order to care for Mama the heirs sold the farm at public auction in 1964. My husband and I purchased it and in 1965, we moved into the house in which I was born.
Benjamin, known as "Boss" to family and friends died on May 28,1931 of a brain tumor reportedly caused by a head injury incurred by a wooden flywheel spinning off a piece of farm equipment. One of the saddest, most heartbreaking pictures I have ever seen was the one of Mother and her four children, Marvin, Norman, (Bernard Taylor died of flu in 1922 at one year of age) Edith, and me taken shortly after Daddy's funeral. She was wearing her mourning clothes and was holding me, a six month old, on her lap. All wore sad expressions. I am indeed grateful to my older cousins who so generously gave me that picture and many other old family pictures when they cleaned out their parents personal belongings after their death.
In those days, farmers used horses and mules to produce and harvest their crops. The equipment mentioned above was a stationery steam engine with flywheels and belts to power equipment for thrashing peanuts and grain. I remember it stored in under a shed attached to a barn located directly in front of the Snow Hill house. There was also a small corncrib located near the barn but closer to the road. Older family members, probably Daddy's sister, Aunt Stella, and my Mother, told me that both buildings had been part of Snow Hill property and I have always wondered why those farm buildings were in front of the main house. Ella Gertrude Booth, the mother of Stella and Benjamin, Jr., grew up at Snow Hill so Stella should know about such matters as the location of the outbuildings.
In 1974, when I began to gather a little family history, Aunt Stella told me her mother Ella Gertrude Booth left the house one morning to milk cows at the barn across the road. Instead of milking cows, she jumped in the buggy with the waiting Benjamin Taylor Goodrich, Sr. to be married. That was August 26, 1876. Does anyone have a record where the wedding took place? I wish I had taken more time to learn more history our older relatives would have enjoyed sharing with me.
Stored in the same shed with the steam engine were two old cars. One was a Buick and the other a Ford. When I was about seven years old, the family tackled the dusty, dirty job of clearing the barn of old, worn out plow points, cultivator hoes, various parts of unused, worn out equipment and whatever other junk which had accumulated. Little did Mama know Japan would throw the junk she sold or gave away as scrap metal back at this country during World War II.
Mama must have been a special person and manager to hold the family together and to retain possession of the farm without losing everything during the Depression. Fortunately for all of us her two oldest were boys. She taught them that she became BOSS when he died and the boys never stopped calling her that. Marvin was 14 and Norman was 12 when Daddy died, so they were of great assistance in getting the farm work done. One of my elderly neighbors told me a few years ago he often saw my brothers working the fields or in the woods cutting firewood and he wondered how she got them, at such young ages, to do those jobs. The wood was necessary for heating in cold weather and for the cook stove in all kinds of weather regardless of how hot the kitchen got in summer.
All of us learned to carry our share of the load as soon as we became old enough. Edith (Tillie) was about 6 ½ years older than I was, so when Mama's mother, Otelia Florence Westbrook came to live with us prior to her death, Tillie recalls the stacks of laundry necessary to keep Grandma's bedclothes clean. An eleven or twelve year old using a scrub board for the chore would never forget it. We can really appreciate the conveniences electricity brought to rural Virginia when electric lines were constructed when I was a teenager. Grandma died when I was in first grade. My memory of her as being sick in bed and I had to be quiet so as not to disturb her. I also remember her casket in our living room and the unusual activity in the family the day of her funeral.
Marvin managed to get an eighth-grade education, Norman and Tillie graduated from Dendron High School. I rode the school bus to Dendron for eight years, and commuted to Waverly for High School. Mother had learned early, probably before Daddy's death to drive an automobile, so she was not at all reluctant to allow me to drive to school as soon as I was old enough for the license. I do not recall she was ever without an automobile. Transportation was a necessity as we lived five miles from the nearest town. On Sundays, she allowed the boys to drive us into Waverly for Sunday school at Waverly Methodist Church although she stayed home, probably to get some much needed rest and peace.
Prior to graduation, I thought I wanted to become a nurse. Louise Obici Hospital was under construction at the time and their representatives made presentations at the schools recruiting candidates for their nursing school. My interest in a nursing career faded when they took us on a tour of their existing Lakeview hospital, including the conditions in the wards and as far into the surgery area as they could. Nursing is a noble and rewarding career for others but Jean did not have what it required. Another reason for not pursuing nursing, in September 1948, I started dating Shirley Johnson who had been out with several nurses there and had heard from them how difficult working conditions were. I think their demanding schedule interfered with his dating schedule! Anyway, I valued his opinion.
After graduation in 1949, I worked about eight months in the office of East Coast Electric Company, a small company located in Waverly that sold out to Virginia Electric and Power Company in March 1950. VEPCO transferred me to their Richmond Office. The city was too much for this country girl! There was nothing but concrete, masses of people, vehicles and their pollution. I quit after three days and came home. Preparing for vegetable planting, Mama and I were clearing the debris from the garden spot a few days later when the President of the Farm Credit Office in Waverly (known then as Southside Virginia Production Credit Association and the National Farm Loan Association) came to ask if I was interested in applying for a bookkeeping job with them. Their executive committee interviewed me that afternoon and I went to work a few days later.
The work ethic, honesty, and integrity instilled in me at an early age paid off. I continued to learn more and more about as much of the business as I could, took all the courses and training Farm Credit offered. Most related to accounting, loan processing, training and management. Just keeping up with changes taking place in a financial institution was a challenge then as it is today and will continue. Actually, the organization and I grew together. The bookkeeping position in 1950 turned into the position of Vice-President, Financial and Administrative Services. In1988, when the local organization, which served counties in Southside Virginia and the cities of Suffolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach, merged with four other Farm Credit Associations to become Colonial Farm Credit, I retired and became a full-time homemaker and wife, and a part-time Grammy to two grandsons.
The U. S. Army drafted Shirley in January 1951. He served two years and we were married twelve days after his discharge. We went back to our jobs five days later. Our son Jimmy was born twelve months later, the most precious Christmas gift I ever had. He was a joy to raise, and his father was always there and had a positive influence in his life. We had no other children.
Jimmy and his first wife, Gloria, have two boys. Taylor is now a student at James Madison University and Emory is in high school at New Kent.
|
| Person ID |
I879 |
Booth Family |
| Last Modified |
6 Jul 2015 |
| Father |
GOODRICH Benjamin Taylor, Jr., b. 3 Oct 1886, Dendron, Surry, Virginia, United States d. 28 May 1931 (Age 44 years) |
| Mother |
WESTBROOK Mabel Pearl, b. 1 Oct 1896, Dendron, Surry, Virginia, United States d. 28 Jul 1972, Portsmouth, VA (Age 75 years) |
| Marriage |
22 Dec 1915 |
Dendron, Surry, Virginia, United States |
| Family ID |
F246 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
JOHNSON Shirley James, Sr., b. 9 Feb 1929, Dendron, Surry, Virginia, United States d. 8 May 2013, Waverly, Sussex County, VA (Age 84 years) |
| Marriage |
28 Jan 1953 |
Stony Creek, Sussex, Virginia (Parsonage-Stony Creek Methodist Church) [2] |
- Maid of Honor: Alice (Bootsie) Hawkins
Best Man: Gene Clark
Preacher: Rev. Courtney Sheffield and his wife Betty was a witness.
Honeymoon in Washington, DC
Shirley was so used to driving in Germany (Army) that he tried to drive backwards down a one-way
Washington, DC., street
|
| Children |
|
| Family ID |
F313 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
27 Feb 2008 |
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| Photos
|
 | Goodrich: Doris Jean Goodrich
Doris Jean Goodrich Johnson |
 | Westbrook: Westbrook Family
Taken at Doris Jean Goodrich Johnson's home |
 | Goodrich: Benjamin Taylor Goodrich House
taken in 1976 with the family. Last photo of the old home before it was torn down. Doris Jean Goodrich Johnson now lives in a brick home built on the site |
 | Goodrich: Benjamin Taylor Goodrich Jr Home
Overview
This was part of Snow Hill Plantation until he purchased it from Charles Lee Bishop. |
 | Goodrich: Benjamin Goodrich, Jr. home
HOUSE BUILT BY BENJAMIN TAYLOR GOODRICH, JR. AND MABEL PEARL WESTBROOK GOODRICH. A SNAPHOT WAS GIVEN TO JEAN GOODRICH JOHNSON IN APRIL, 2002 AND SHE MADE THIS ENLARGED COPY. FLORENCE BISHOP SODE IDENTIFIED A FEW OF THE PEOPLE. STARTING ON THE RIGHT: OTELIA FLORENCE JAMES WESTBROOK, EDITH LOUISE GOODRICH,MABEL PEARL WESTBROOK GOODRICH AGAINST THE POST WITH BENJAMIN LEANING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF POST, HELEN BISHOP IN FRONT OF HER AUNT PEARL. THE NEXT ADULT COUPLE WERE CHARLIE BISHOP AND NONA WESTBROOK BISHOP WITH DAUGHTERS FLORENCE (AT NONA’S RIGHT) AND MARIE. |
 | Goodrich: Benjamin Goodrich, Jr. home
List of people in the photo |
 | Westbrook: The Cousins
Taken in 2000 at the Cousins Reunion |
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