Jessie Virginia Scott
Jessie Virginia Scott (Williams) b. December 4, 1913 at Cross Lanes Arkansas d. 19 Nov 1993 Jessie at the right at age 15 (?) in 1928 (?). Enlargement. |
Jessie was born in Arkansas but moved back to Kentucky with her parents when she was
one year old. She lived with her family on the Jesse Stith Farm in Meade County
Kentucky until the fall of 1933. Most of her grade school years, she attend Hall
School on the Big Spring road. One year she attended Shumate School on the north side of Stith Valley.
This letter, written October, 16, 1933, was
just before her parents moved to Brandenburg Kentucky, and shortly before she married
Francis Williams in April 1934. During the school year of 1931, Jessie lived in Montgomery
Co., Indiana and attended New Ross High School. Essay written by
Jessie in 1931. The following year, she went to a Catholic high school in Flaherty.
Pictured at right at Scott Hill Farm in about 1933(?) age 20(?). Full picture. ** View is slightly south of west taken from a spot just west of the house. |
Jessie at the right at age 22 in Washington DC in 1936. Enlargement.
Credits: Harris V Ewing Washington, D.C. "To. Grand mama " |
** Notes on white dress. Alice Scott 1 August 1998: Also, I want to say
something about the white dress in some of the old pictures. Ma had a beautiful white
dress that had been her graduation dress. She attended high school in Arkansas and
graduated there. It was customary for girls to wear white dresses for that occasion,
usually an especially nice one. Ma's was made with a fitted bodice and a full skirt with
ruffles and, if I remember right, it had lace on the ruffles, or maybe
it was embroidery. We can only imagine that a skilled seamstress in Arkansas made it for
her, and since Ma's father doted on her, he probably did not spare the expense, being a
lawyer on the frontier where land business was thriving. Her mother would have been quite
busy with several small children, and the work on the dress indicated a specialized
workmanship. The dress was at Ma's house in Brandenburg when Jack and I were married in
1941. It was put away carefully in the closet, but Ma would get it out occasionally and
let us look at it. Young girls and women in the family especially enjoyed seeing it. She
lent it to girls to wear in plays or other performances on stage, always with the
implication that it was very valuable, and proper care should be taken. In later years Ma
could remember only that she had lent it to someone (perhaps a renter's daughter) , but
she could not remember whether or not it came back. The war was in full swing, the sons
going off to war, all of us in a most transitional time, living here and there, and with
all of that Ma went to work herself, teaching, and then to work in Washington, so that she
really did not think of the dress for a long time. And then she could not find it.
So it is a thing of stories, of drama, of romance; but it was quite real, and a few of
us remember the times when she would let girls have their pictures made in it. I believe
it may be the dress Jessie is wearing in a photo you reproduced recently.