An unexpected connection

In a good, flowing conversation, one story leads to another. And so it is with written stories, as was evidenced again this past week.

Friday afternoon, after reading his copy of the July 10 edition of The Pocahontas Times, Dennis Lockhart, of White Sulphur Springs, called The Times office.

He said he had information regarding the front page photo that accompanied the story about Arbovale resident Pearl Clarkson, “A girl’s courage, a man’s generosity.”

Lockhart said his eyes were immediately drawn to the old photo of Pearl as a little girl, standing with an unidentified woman at Pocahontas Memorial Hospital. He was drawn to it because he recognized it from his own collection of family photos.

Lockhart explained that the woman whom Pearl thought was a cook, was, in fact, his aunt, Betty Verna Williams Gilmore. He said Gilmore was a nurse at the hospital and took care of the nursery and the children.

Gilmore was married to Henry M. Gilmore who worked at Smith’s Funeral Home in Marlinton. The couple lived behind PMH on hospital land. Lockhart said Gilmore was 26-years-old when the photo was taken and she worked at the hospital for 45 years. She passed away in 1970 at the age of 67, two years after she retired. She was preceded in death by Henry, who passed away in 1955.

Lockhart looks forward to sharing stories and photos with Pearl.