Jessie Bertie Lane

Jessie Bertie Lane

When I was a little girl growing up in Middlesboro, Kentucky, I LOVED going to my Aunt Jessie's house.  At that time (late 1960s and early 1970s), she and her family lived in Middlesboro, too, and only three or four miles from our house.  But while we lived in just a regular old house in a regular old neighborhood, Aunt Jessie lived on a farm.  Not a big farm, maybe not even a farm at all, but she had a barn and all sorts of animals.  Dogs, cats, chickens, a rooster, cows--and even apple trees. I thought it was great!

My Aunt Jessie, full name Jessie Bertie Lane, was the fourth child of William and Martha Pierce Lane.  She was born on September 18, 1909, in Clairfield, Tennessee.  With three older siblings and four younger ones, Jessie grew up as one of the middle children in this big family.

Jessie Lane and Wallace Greene

Jessie Patricia Greene
2 months

Jessie married Wallace Wesley Green on February 23, 1932, in Hickman, Tennessee. At age 22, this was Jessie's first (and only) marriage.  Wallace, 30 years old at the time, had been married before and had two children.  In the early 1940s, Jessie and Wallace had their one and only child together, my sweet cousin, Patsy, or Jessie Patricia Greene.

Jessie and Patsy Greene

For a while, Aunt Jessie and her family lived in Cambria, Virginia, and then they came to live for a while in Middlesboro on that wonderful farm that I loved to visit. Sometime in the 1970s, the Greens moved back to Virginia, settling in the town of Rocky Mount in Franklin County.  Wallace died in 1975, and Aunt Jessie died in 1982 at age 72.  Both are buried in Rocky Mount.