John W. Beck

Many years ago, more than I like to recall, when I was a little girl sitting on my grandfather Beck's lap, I didn't realize I'd live to see the day when that same site would be the Patrick Henry School.

In 1881 John W. Beck and the former Phoebe Wohlgamuth, along with their six children, moved from Wyandot County, near Carey, Ohio, to Henry County and located two miles east of Hamler, Ohio, on an eighty acre plot. This, like most of the land at that time was all woods. They cleared ground and built a log cabin. Their children were William, Alpheus, Robert, Jesse, James, and Mima, all deceased now.

William Beck was my father and he was fourteen years old when his family moved to Henry County. He often told of how he walked the two miles into Hamler on the B. & 0. Railroad tract to buy a few groceries his mother needed. He bought an adjoining forty acre farm. He married Jane Elizabeth Mitchell in 1909 and they were the parents of six children, Mrs. Julius (Mona) Walter of Florida, Ohio; Mrs. John (Lucille) Bordoli of Petersburg, Michigan; Mrs. Wilmetta Krum, Napoleon, Ohio; Mr. Burl Beck, McComb, Ohio; Mrs. John (Bernetta) Seyer, Leipsic, Ohio; and Mrs. Wilbur (Irene) Abbott, Leipsic, Ohio. There are ten grandchildren and nineteen great grandchildren.

As a young man he was very interested in music and taught himself how to play the organ and piano, later serving as the organist and secretary of the United Brethren Church near Hamler. After the death of his wife, my mother, in 1942 he retired from farming and moved to Belmore, Ohio. He lived there until his eye sight failed and he could no longer live alone. He moved to the home of his daughter, Mrs. Seyer, where he lived until his death in 1965 at nearly 98 years of age.

I take great pride in passing the Patrick Henry School and thinking back to those days of all woods and the hard labor it must have been for my grandfather and father to clear the grounds where the beautiful school and landscaped grounds are today nearly a century later.

Submitted by Mrs. Julius Walter, Sr.