BIRTH: July 28, 1876, Henry County, Indiana
PARENTAGE: Allen Crandall Spell and Mahala Dunbar Spell
SIBS: Jessie Virginia Spell Adams, Mamie Spell Breathitt, Nellie Spell Finnegan and John Mark Spell.
MARRIAGE: Charles Rosco Shirk, January 4th, 1899, New Castle, Indiana.
CHILDREN: Joseph Bernard Shirk, Hallie Shirk Lee, Mabel Shirk Barrickman, Susan Shirk Gauker, John Francis Shirk and Charles Roscoe Shirk.
EDUCATION: Mt. Summit and New Castle grade schools, Graduated from New Castle high school in 1895.
CHURCH: Member of the New Castle Christian Church for over 60 years.
ORGANIZATIONS: Henry County War Mothers, Henry County Historical Society.
DIED: March 24th, 1952, New Castle, Indiana

Born, educated, married, lived all of her life in Henry County. The Henry County Historical Society lost an irreplaceable friend in Bessie Shirk. Bessie lived the whole of her 75 years in Henry County. To know her was to know and to love Henry County. As Henry County grew from 1876 on, Bessie grew with it, from infancy to maturity she was not only a part of the county, it became a part of her very being. When she sang:

"I love thy rocks and rills
Thy woods and templed hills
My heart with rapture thrills"

That was how she felt about her Henry County. She made her first and last footprints on Henry County soil, indeed, she left her footprints all over the county as she roamed its woods, waded streams, skirted its swamps, climbed its prehistoric Indian mounds and visited with its people. With her remarkably alert mind she gathered together a vast store of knowledge about Henry County, its history, its folklore and legends, its physical characteristics and above all else, its people. Bessie liked people.

All of her 75 years were full to the brim with domestic, family and friendly duties. Her Henry County ties were completed when she married Charles R. Shirk, a young Henry County man and together they reared their family of three sons, and three daughters.

On of her most striking charateristics was her unquenchable enthusiams which, even until her last days, had the breathless spontaneity of an intelligent, wondering youth. Her interests were always outside of herself, for she possessed that rare quality - supreme forgetfulness of self. Yet she was by nature a gifted person, especially in artistic talents. With little or no formal training, and with no time to devote to artistic efforts professionally, she could and did express herself in more than one artistic field, She sketched with versatile ease. She could and did express herself in prose and poetry; for like Henry Countians, she possessed a goodly share of Indiana's special heritage - the Hoosier ability to write.

Here are a few lines from a poem dashed off in 1943 when Bessie was 67 years old. It was written in a nostalgic mood as she mused over the modern changes that had come to her beloved county:

Entitled "Blue River Valley"

I saw again the sunken road,
Close by the untamed river flowed.
Low banks enclosed her waters still
And here and there she roamed at will.
So thickly grew the weed and vine
And through the willow branches twine
They formed an archway overhead,
The sun a mottled carpet spread
And nature ever tried to close
The ranks against her marching foes.

But progress ever so on the move
Must choose this valley for her trail
Of iron and steel. So crews of men
By day and night lay ties and rails
And deep into her savage breast
They drove the heavy timber pile
And ever did sge hide her wounds
With violets in wanton style

But Oh my valley, lush and wild
I'll make myself be reconciled
Content to have my grandsons lave
In cement pools, Oh happy quite they seem to be
Unmindful of publicity.
For three-lane roads and graceful curve
The need of man more surely serve
And maybe youth can beauty see
In conrete's cold hard symmetry.

Even these few lines reveal her love for Henry County, as well as her Hoosier ability to wield a talented pen. The lines taken from her poem "Blue River Valley". But Bessie had little time or inclination to induldge in nostalgic thoughts. She was essentially a person with a joyous heart that sang "Tis summer and the days are long", the last line of some poetic stanzas written by another singing Henry County heart. Four years ago when the novel "Raintree County" was published, Bessie read it with eagerness and enthusiasm because the prototype of Raintree County was her beloved Henry County. Johnny, like Bessie, was searching for knowledge and the Tree of Life, symbolized by the Raintree. Neither our Bessie Shirk nor Johnny Shawnessy stoppped searching for knowledge and sharing their talents. It was just as true for Bessie as it was for Johnny that... "Victory was not in consummations but in quests."

Bessie Shirk was truly a questing spirit! She has found her Tree of Life.

By Elsie Shockley Lockridge, mother of Ross Lockridge, author of "Raintree County"

THE PIONEERS - Biography of Bessie's gr-grandparents
THE ELOPEMENT
GENERATIONS GO A FLYING
A GIRL OF THE 1880's GETS A NEW DRESS
JOHN WESLEY DUNBAR - Family group sheet of the John Wesley Dunbar family.
BIO OF J.W. DUNBAR - From the History of Henry County, Indiana 1822-1906

JOHN WESLEY DUNBAR
The family of John W. Dunbar -
grandparents of Bessie Spell Shirk