Jessie Martin DeBusk

                                 Jessie Martin DeBusk celebrates her 102nd Birthday

Jessie Marie Martin was born August 18, 1917, in Monitor (near New Lebanon) to Harry Adolphus and Edith Laynes Baker Martin.

Jessie attended Union High School during her freshman and sophomore years. A challenge for her and others was transportation.  There were no school buses so girls had to find a room to stay in town.  The boys rode horseback, hitch-hiked, or whatever. (School buses began in 1935.)

Jessie found a room with Rev. Charles and Eileen York and their family.  She would go home on Friday and return late Sunday.  She worked as a part-time nanny for the three York boys receiving a small wage, her first job.  Rev. York was a minister with the Union Methodist Charge.

High school was a lot different from the two-room school she had attended at Fairview.  There were so many teachers, rooms, halls, students and choices of activities.  She chose choral group, basketball, history, English, math, and home economics.

In 1934 the Yorks were transferred to Front Royal, Virginia.  Jessie went with them because they were expecting a new baby any time.  There she attended Warren County High School for her junior and senior years graduating in June of 1936.

Jessie's graduation in 1936

In October of 1939 Jessie moved with the Yorks to Urbanna, Virginia, as a full-time nanny for four boys and to find a job.   She became a file clerk at the Bank of Middlesex moving up the ranks to teller, assistant cashier, assistant vice-president, secretary to the Board, vice-president, and assistant trust office and secretary to the Board of Directors, then remained as consultant to the Trust Department until 1992.

She and her husband, Emory DeBusk, a county agent, were married for fourteen months before he passed away in 1958.

At the age of 102, Jessie remains in Urbanna, still active in the Middlesex County Women’s Club and her church.

Her sister, Mayo Kelly Martin Lemons, 98, is a member of the Class of 1939; her brother, Bill was in the Class of 1938, and her sister, Frances, was in the Class of 1940.

Mayo, Frances Bill and Jessie Martin

Submitted by:  Doris Ann Lemons Taylor