Today (March 10) is the birthday of Bertha Whitlock, the only daughter of Alexander and Mary Whitlock. She was was born in 1883 in Waverly, no doubt at the family farm, and she also was the youngest child. Here is a photograph of her and her parents:
Bertha never married, though I think she was in love once and was perhaps left broken-hearted by her fiance. She was very dedicated to her parents and took care of them until their deaths.
The caption on the back of this photo identifies Bertha and supposedly her brother, James Oscar. However, there is some family lore about some fellow named Walter Reed (or Read) that Bertha was sweet on. The man in the photo could very well be James, but there are certain differences in the eyes and ears of the man in this photograph that look somewhat different from James. This is certainly something to speculate on. For some reason she never married and Bertha dedicated her life to teaching the children of Morgan County.
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The images below are all related to her teaching career. There are several pages of handwritten notes that indicate the years she taught and where. Her career spanned from 1905 to 1940, plus she lists school year 1946-47 as teaching at Hurricane Neck. The images immediately below this text were written by Bertha--doesn't she have beautiful penmanship? She lists the years she taught, where, and how much she was paid.
Bertha died in 1949 and was buried in the same plot in Franklin (Ill.) Cemetery as her parents and her brother James. Aunt Sharon (Whitlock) Toler has a beautiful hand-tinted portrait of Bertha hanging in her living room for all the family to see (a photo of this portrait is below).
I would like to think that Bertha was a source of inspiration for family members who became teachers--Aunt Kay Austiff, my sister Cindy, cousin Natalie, and soon my daughter Kaitlyn. If I could travel back in time Bertha is one of those ancestors I would love to talk with and learn her life story. I think she is a fascinating woman.
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