Jim & Bess Wolfe

Jim & Bess Wolfe

married: November 2, 1910
Jim & Bess met at a dinner party given by a mutual friend in Cerulean Springs, Kentucky.
child:
Dorothy Elizabeth Wolfe (Southard) - Dot was born at the house. Her daddy, Jim, was holding and rocking her immediately.
grandchildren:
John B. Southard Jr (1947-2008)
Elizabeth "Betty" Ann Southard (Stokes) (1950-)

Jim & Bess:
They both loved to cook and were great cooks. They took great pride in how their table looked, so meals were always special. Check below for Bess' Chocolate Cake recipe and Jim's burgoo recipe. They also loved to fish and went fishing often with friends. Jim was quite the sportsman and always clean, dressed, and cooked his own catch. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, and frog gigging. Bess was always sewing, knitting, cooking, baking, doing embroidery, tatting, or needlepoint. She entered pieces each year in the county fair and won blue ribbons. Bess played in several bridge groups and was very skilled at the game. Jim was usually busy running the Distribution Plant for Standard Oil or helping a neighbor. When he could relax, he enjoyed listening to Harry Cary on the radio call a baseball game or playing "High Low Jick Jack & the Game" cards with the men in the neighborhood.

James "Jim" Alvin Wolfe
born: February 8, 1886
parents:
George Michael Wolfe & Sidney Elizabeth West (Wolfe)

grandparents:

Issac Tucker Wolfe (1820-1883) & Adelia Ann Tucker (Wolfe) (1824-1907) and

Philip Edgar West (1811 & ?) & Eliza A. Johnson (West) (1818-?)

great grandparents:

George Wolfe (about 1770-1820) & Elizabeth Flemming (about 1794-?)

2nd great grandfather:
Jacob Wolfe Sr. (about 1730 in Germany - about 1821 Virginia)
siblings:
Phil, Joe, Eliza, Clyde, Jerome, Ira, and Beth
career: Standard Oil Distributor for the Western Region of Kentucky. As a young man, Jim had some exciting work experiences before joining Standard Oil. At about age 12, he got a job at Hopkinsville buggy shop and a local florist. Then he took off to explore the west. He found work as a stage driver in Kansas, a circus roustabout in St. Louis, and survived the Texas oil fields.
Rock of Gilbralta: Loved people completely. Jim was always thinking of the other fellow. He took care of his aging parents, his in-laws, his neighbors and his extended family. He was the fifth son of a farmer. The four older boys worked the fields. Jim's job in the family was to help his mother in the kitchen and tend to his two baby sisters. He loved to surprise people and had a world of friends. He regularly played cards with the men in the neighborhood.
Women's Suffrage:
After women won the right to vote, Jim would leave work and come home on election days. He rounded up all the women on Bryan Street and drove them to the polls to vote.
Sportsman: Jim hunted, fished, and frog gigged. He cleaned and cooked his own game and served it with style. To clean his fish, he would tack it to a board by the tail and scale it with a knife.
died: September 16, 1956 of a heart attack.

Bess Lander Hopson (Wolfe)
born: February 28, 1992
parents:
Meredith Shellcross Hopson & "Betty"Elizabeth Ann Lander (Hopson)

grandparents:

David G. Hopson (1829-1866) & Caroline Gibson (Hopson) (?-1856)

John W. Strode Lander (1830-1869) & Mary Jane Blakeley (Lander) (1824-1869)

great grandparents:

John Strode Lander (1792-1846) & Elizabeth Haggard (Lander) (1791-1835)

Josiah "Joel" Blakeley (1800-1870) & Elizabeth Goodwin (Blakeley) (1801-1895)

John Hopson (1819-1899) & Sara C. Hopson (1820-1911)

siblings:
Guy Ethelbert Hopson b: 1884
Mary Hopson (McCollum) b: 1890

career: homemaker
nurse: Bess nursed both of her aging parents & her in-laws as they were passing. She nursed many a neighbor back to health and sat with neighbors that were passing.
died: December 29, 1985 of pneumonia

Storyteller Bess

Known for her wit, Bess loved to tell a funny story or share a joke. Here are a few of her tales remembered. Some jokes won't work in print because her facial expressions made the joke.

How do you catch a unique rabbit? You unique up on it!

How do you catch a tame rabbit? Unique up on it de tame way!

When referring to a neighbor that always called her husband Mr. Gaines: I think if I'd had three children by a man I could call him by his first name.

"You look like my third husband!"

"I do? How many times have you been married?"

"Twice!"

The Great Depression

The stock market crashed in 1929. Jim brought food for friends and neighbors. He hired as many family members and neighbors at the Standard Oil Plant as he could carry. There were community farmers that Jim carried their Standard Oil farm accounts over a long period to help them operate their equipment and not lose their farms. When the nation was also suffering with a bitter draught, Jim hauled truck loads of water to the farmers in the area. This helped save their crops.

He loved to cook. Quite often he would prepare a hugh kettle drum of soup, go to the railway yard and fill his truck up with people, haul them back to the house, feed them in the backyard, and return them back to the rail yard.

Jim & Bess rest side by side in Riverside Cemetery, Hopkinsville, KY.