He was a slim, six-foot tall man with curly hair that never needed combing, or maybe always did. In his more than ninety years he never lost his curl that showed some gray only in his later years. A kind and shy guy who seldom raised his voice in anger, Isaac Jessee was reared on a southwestern Virginia hillside farm. Despite spending his entire working career as an office worker he never lost his agrarian character. Everywhere he lived he had a garden with vegetables, berries and flowers. He rented a house on a big lot that happened to have a barn in the back corner, and of course he bought a cow to occupy the barn.

This blue-eyed Mr. Jessee found his love; a blue-eyed school teacher with straight bobbed brown hair named Ivo Wells and married her in 1920. They moved their family to Pineville, Kentucky where they reared their three kids. They later moved to Middlesboro, Kentucky where they lived until Ivo’s death in 1959. Evidently he preferred married life to living alone and single. In the early 60’s he married Ruby, the widow of an old acquaintance.

Ruby lived in a small two-story house near the home of her mother, Mammy Yokum, and near others of Mammy’s clan. It was natural for the new couple to live in Ruby’s house. Ruby was a plain woman with fatty jowls and somewhat stringy gray hair. She never wore makeup, but she had an engaging smile that more than made up for no makeup. It was plain to see that she was mighty fond of Jessee.

Ruby was only part of a package deal in the marriage. With her came her dogs, the little yappy ones, Chihuahuas. They must have had half a dozen at one time. The runt named Baby (or was it Billy) was their favorite. When a non-family person entered the house a chorus of yapping prevailed for many minutes even when the dogs were removed to a remote location.

Ruby’s younger sister, Bertie, lived in a big stone house on a corner across the street from Ruby and Jessee. Although Bertie had many characteristics similar to her sister, she was much different. Bertie looked as if she spent some time at a beauty parlor. She had short wavy blonde hair and she wore makeup, perhaps more than necessary. Bertie was divorced and worked for a lawyer in Pineville, the county seat. She drove 13 miles across Log Mountain each day to work. She was good at her job. She must have spent much of her free time at antique or rummage sales. Her big stone house was furnished almost entirely with antique furniture, all of good quality. The house on a lot sloping upward from the street was unique. It was built by an old German man from rounded stones gathered from creek beds, fitted together and secured by concrete. The house conformed to the slope of the land, the kitchen and dining room on the lower level and the living room and bedrooms on the higher. Surrounded by trees and shrubs, the house was not evident from the street. 

Bertie evidently didn’t spend very much time at her house. She usually stopped in at the Jessee’s for the evening. They and their dogs became a close-knit family. Jessee busied himself in maintaining the house and grounds of both houses and tending his gardens. He was always proud of his flowers and his vegetables. He made many innovations that few others would have thought of. Ruby took care of most of the housekeeping chores.

Bertie didn’t like the idea of sleeping alone in the stone house and eventually moved in with the Jessee’s. The arrangement

worked well for them, at least for a while. Even after Ruby died Bertie stayed to look after the old man that both women thought of as the best and kindest man they had ever known.

Bertie’s absence from her house proved profitable for burglars. Word got around the burgling community of the easy touch. The theft continued until the only things of value left in the house were too heavy to be moved without real work. What burglar wants work? Police were never able to find the burglars or their loot.

There’s no doubt that Bertie enjoyed tracking down and buying antiques and rummage sale clothes. She had a room full of high quality dresses that she never got to wear. Unfortunately neither did anyone else. The whole lot was infested with barely visible little brown roaches that ate little holes in the fabric.

The pity of her life was that she got so little use of her big stone house full of antiques and fine clothes. Instead she found joy in association with her loved ones.