Jane Rutledge Jessee Sharp, 83, passed away January 14, 2025, at Brookdale Charleston Gardens in Charleston.
Born in Marlinton, Pocahontas County, November 27, 1941, she was the daughter of the late Basil Clair Sharp and Jane Stobo Price Sharp.
Jane’s mother recalled that she was still in the hospital two weeks later when she heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Shortly after Jane turned three, her family learned of the death of her father, an infantryman, in Europe on December 23, 1944. Her mother then raised Jane and her two older brothers, Basil and John, in Marlinton.
In eighth grade, Jane became a Lady of the Golden Horseshoe for her superior knowledge of West Virginia. She was a cheerleader at Marlinton High School and graduated near the top of her class in 1959. She maintained some high school friendships for life, including those with Stephany Morgan, Linda Burns Smith and the late Louise Currence Christensen.
After high school, Jane went south to Decatur, Georgia, to attend Agnes Scott College. There she met her first husband, Russell D. Jessee Jr. of Atlanta. They married at Marlinton Presbyterian Church in the summer of 1962. Jane then finished her studies at Agnes Scott, graduating in 1963 with a B.A. in political science. Rare was the family political debate when Jane did not remind us of her college major.
Jane and Russell had four children in five years beginning with Russell in 1964, then Christopher in 1965, John Patrick in 1967, and Dorothy in 1969. Jane and Russell divorced in 1973, and Jane then married William Poole. The family spent a short time in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and then moved to Marlinton in 1976. Jane remembered watching the Bicentennial fireworks from Kee’s Rocks above Marlinton on an unseasonably cold July 4. She divorced for a second time in 1979.
In 1985, Jane began seeing Lewis Sharp. They were together for nearly eight years before deciding to marry on a December day in 1992 when they “jumped the border” to the Bath County Courthouse in Warm Springs, Virginia. They then shared another 31 years of adventures before Lewis died in March 2024.
Every Fall for many years, Lewis guided hunts in the Tetons for elk, mule deer, and Shiras moose, and Jane very much enjoyed being the camp cook. She was an accomplished scratch cook over a campfire and a stove. She was proud of what she called “59-cent meals” – the cost of the store-bought ingredients, usually for the biscuits. Everything else was the wild game and fish that Lewis brought home, the fresh and canned vegetables and fruits from their 15 acres on Jerico Road, and eggs from the chickens they kept. “Farm-to-table” was simply how Jane cooked every meal.
Also in 1985, Jane was managing editor of The Pocahontas Times – the fourth generation of the family to work there – when Marlinton was flooded in November. With more than six feet of water in the Times Office, all the typesetting and addressing machinery was ruined. Jane helped usher in the use of Apple Macintosh computers for composing the newspaper and managing subscriptions. Jane oversaw The Pocahontas Times’s transition from being the last hand-set newspaper east of the Mississippi to being the first fully computerized newspaper in West Virginia.
When her eldest son, Russell, graduated college with a journalism degree in 1988, Jane passed the managing editorship of The Pocahontas Times to him. She continued to work at the weekly newspaper for a few more years, and then she opened an antique store. Jane originally called the store Rock House Antiques after its location in a rock house on Route 219 at the town limits. She then moved the store to Eighth Street in Marlinton and eventually to the original Times Office building on Second Avenue. Jane and Lewis very much enjoyed stocking the store from estate auctions around Pocahontas County.
Jane was an accomplished pianist and organist. For many years, she filled in as the organist for the Marlinton Episcopal Church. Her love of music also extended to her participation in the Marlinton Community Choir for many years. Jane also was an avid reader and a dedicated quilter. Her children and grandchildren have many quilts to keep them warm with thoughts of their mother and grandmother.
For the past three years, Jane resided at Brookdale Charleston Gardens where she was well cared-for on the Clare Bridge memory care wing. Dorothy visited daily and worked a jigsaw puzzle with – and eventually for – her, and Jane played double solitaire with Russell. Jane also enjoyed watching birds at the feeders outside her window and even enjoyed seeing the deer that came to raid the feeders.
Jane was preceded in death by her parents, Basil and Jane Sharp; her brother, Basil Sharp; and her husband of 31 years, Lewis Sharp.
She is survived by her brother, John (Jane Poundstone) Sharp, of Slaty Fork; her sons, Russell (Cinnamon) Jessee, of Charleston, Christopher Jessee, of Marlinton, and Patrick Jessee (Eileen Potts), of Lebanon, New Hampshire; her daughter, Dorothy (Ted) Pile, of Charleston; grandchildren, Elizabeth Pile, of Charlotte, North Carolina, Marshall Pile, of Charlotte, North Carolina, Emily Jessee, of Nashville, Tennessee, and Maxwell Jessee, of Charlotte, North Carolina; and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.
Jane’s wish was that she be cremated.
A memorial service will be held at a later time.
