Winn and Annie Pendleton Barnard
By Beverly Belcher Woody
Annie Catherine Pendleton was born September 2, 1877, in Mayberry, Virginia. She was the first child of Daniel Pendleton and Mary Frances Robertson Pendleton, and the granddaughter of John Pendleton and Annie Hubbard and Joseph Harry Robertson and Sarah Harrell. Annie only weighed two pounds at birth. She was kept warm by being swaddled in a quilt and kept in a box by the fireplace.
When Annie was about 5 years old, she came down with diphtheria. When her throat began to swell shut, her parents used a salt stick to open her airway. Annie hated the salt stick and the pain it caused, and she hated the taste of salt for the rest of her life.
Daniel Pendleton’s closest neighbor was Jehu Barnard, a Civil War veteran who was the local schoolteacher. Jehu and his wife, Nancy Adeline Wood, had ten children: their oldest being John Tirea Winford “Winn” Barnard. On October 22, 1893, sixteen-year-old Annie and eighteen-year-old Winn were married by Winn’s uncle, James William Barnard. Winn gifted his new bride with a spinning wheel and several ladder-back chairs that he made using his father’s foot-powered wood lathe.
Annie’s mother gave the couple ten acres of her part of the Robertson land. Winn built a nice log cabin and completed it just in time for the arrival of their son, Daniel Edwin Barnard, in 1895. Although the family was settled in their little Mayberry home, Winn had a hankering to go back out west.
Winn’s father, Jehu, and uncle James had taken their families to live out West in Colorado after the war. They lived in dug outs on the banks of the Arkansas River where the town of Pueblo is today. They experienced dry land farming and prairie living. Jehu and James returned home to Patrick County after a couple of years. Winn said they came back because “the women cried all the time.” (I can understand this!)
Winn decided to try his luck at homesteading in Montana. His brother Jim, brother-in-law Talmadge, and cousin Omega Barnard also went along. The men settled in Beaverton, Montana, which was horse raising country. The men provided mounts for the United States Cavalry.
In 1910, Winn moved his family out to Beaverton to join him. By this time, the couple also had a daughter, Verna, born in Patrick County in 1901. Winn had built a tar paper shack and some outbuildings on their claim. He had started working the soil and dug a well.
In March of 1910, Winn, Annie, 15-year-old Edwin and 9-year-old Nancy Verna left on the train for Montana. Annie had woven a huge basket from hickory splits, and cooked enough fried chicken, fried apple pies, ham, cooked beans, corn bread, apple butter and boiled chestnuts to last for the entire five-day trip.
Two years later, Daniel Pendleton was missing his daughter Annie terribly. It was common practice in Patrick County for men to farm in warm weather and once the harvest was put up, the men would travel to West Virginia to work in the coal mines all winter. Daniel was one of these men. He had been saving his coal mining wages to pay for a trip to Montana to see his daughter and her family.
Daniel Pendleton went to Beaverton, Montana in 1912. He bought two lots in Beaverton near the new irrigation ditch, so Annie could have water for the spring, summer, and fall. Daniel built the family a two-room frame house, covered the tar paper with siding, and painted it white. He also put wide boards over the two-by-fours inside so Annie could put up wallpaper. He also bought her a wood cookstove. Daniel went back to Virginia penniless after spending all his coal mining savings in Montana. I imagine he felt that he had made a good investment.
On May 23, 1913, tragedy struck. Winn and Annie’s son, Edwin, was enroute home for a visit. He had been herding sheep on a ranch south of Saco. He and another boy stopped at Shanks Reservoir for a swim in the cold water. Edwin got a cramp and drowned. He was only eighteen years old. Their son’s death was a terrible blow to Winn and Annie, and they grieved his death until they died.
On the ninth of February 1916, Jehu Donald Barnard was born in the house built by his grandfather Daniel Pendleton. Annie was thirty-eight and Winn was forty. Winters in Montana were very cold, steam from boiling water froze on the inside walls at night and during the day, it would melt, and water would run across the floor.
In the spring of 1918, Winn homesteaded at Telegraph Creek, near his brothers, Jim, J.O. and William. Winn built a house there for Annie. Water was a problem, so Winn dug a well and hit a free-flowing spring. He dug into a hillside and made a dug-out barn for his horses. The first few years, there was ample rainfall for crops, but then the Dust Bowl struck. When crop yields were sparse, the brothers caught wild broncos, tamed them, and broke them for saddle. Annie managed the post office at Telegraph Creek and Winn was a mail carrier for many years.
In 1922, Verna married a Norwegian named John Tverberg and they had four children. Annie, Winn, their son Jehu Donald, and Verna and John decided to travel to Patrick County so that their son and brother could meet his extended family. Annie had been saving up her money and she paid cash for a brand new 1929 Whippet! In June 1929, Winn, Annie, Jehu Donald, Verna, John and daughter Joyce started out for Patrick County from Montana. The water bag hung from the front bumper, the tent was strapped to the rear bumper, and the grub box was on the running board. Traveling in another Whippet was Winn’s sister Sally, her husband Talmadge, Winn’s brother Jim and his stepdaughter, Marguerite.
Virginia was more beautiful than they remembered it and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Everyone was so sad to see them go. On the way back to Montana, they took a big detour and traveled to Virginia Beach to swim in the ocean. The family visited all the sites in Washington, DC and then traveled the brick lined Lincoln Highway through Ohio.
Winn and Annie lived long, productive lives; Winn passing at age ninety-four and Annie passing just before her 98th birthday. The couple is buried in Prosser, Washington. Thank you so much to their granddaughters Joyce and Jean for sharing Winn and Annie’s remarkable life story.
(Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com.)
