Lamar-Monroe County GaArchives News.....Berner Means:  A "Mr. Fix-it" with Charm October 1979
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Elaine Turk Nell http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004116 January 16, 2006, 10:28 pm

The Barnesville Herald  (Barnesville, GA) October 1979
	Berner Means has time on his hands, but never wastes it.  He always 
has a project, whether it be miscellaneous household repairs, carpentry, 
needlepoint, painting, or even constructing grandfather clocks.  Berner, who 
will be 89 next month, constantly looks for new challenges to remain 
active.  “I’ll be a hundred in eleven more years,” he said, “and I have to do 
something or other to pick me up.”
	Often Berner’s work is for others and he is “Mr. Fix-it” to numerous 
neighbors who depend on his expertise.  He is a skilled craftsman and his 
talent is evident in the two grandfather clocks he has built, the pictures he 
paints and the needlepoint he does.
	He is still a very active member of the Fredonia Church, serving as a 
deacon and a member of the board of trustees.  He also sings in the choir 
every Sunday.  Berner originated and founded a trust fund for the church 
cemetery and now for many years the upkeep of the grounds are self-sustaining 
or self-supporting.  Until recently he gathered pecans from the church grounds 
and marketed them for the church, as well as cared for the parsonage on Holmes 
Street.
	He was born in Redbone and grew up in that community.  He attended a 
one-room school house where the students paid the teacher twenty-five cents a 
week to attend class.  Berner said that helped pay her salary and she also 
taught the students about managing money through this system.  After 
completing school at Redbone he graduated as valedictorian of his class at 
Barnesville A & M (agriculture and mechanical), which was a state school 
located here during the early part of the century.
	In reminiscing, Berner said times must have been good for Georgia 
farmers during his early boyhood.  “Everybody was congenial and everybody had 
a good time when I was a boy,” he said.  Grover Cleveland was president during 
that era and Berner recalls when the electricity was turned on in the White 
House for the first time.  He said, “President Cleveland’s wife was afraid to 
let anyone turn off the electricity the first night because she was afraid 
they would all be electrocuted.”
	In recapping outstanding events of his youth, Berner recalled what he 
felt may have been the coldest day in Georgia’s history.  It was on Feb. 3, 
1889, when the mercury dropped to 9 below in Atlanta and 7 below in 
Barnesville.  It also snowed, he said, and the wind blew so hard it “swept the 
snow off the ground and backed it up in wedge shapes on the north side of the 
trees.”  Numerous birds were frozen to death and it was five years before blue 
birds were spotted nesting in the area again, he stated.
	Berner was a farmer in Redbone for a number of years and then tried 
his hand at other businesses.  “I worked in many different successful 
businesses and didn’t make a success of them,” he chuckled.  “I was a dairy 
farmer ten years, saw milled ten years and worked at Barnesville Planing Mill 
ten years—See how the years passed?”
	Remaining a bachelor until middle age, he finally lost his heart in 
1942 to a Barnesville lass, the former Dee Bush.  Today they reside on 
Thomaston Street in “an old home remodeled to look like new.”  Berner does all 
the grocery shopping for his wife because he “had been doing it since a young 
boy.”  He also raises a big garden for her each year and they share vegetables 
with neighbors and friends.  Berner contributes a lot of his home grown 
vegetables to the Redbone Community Club for their annual “Farmers Market.”  
He has been an active member of the club for a long period of years and still 
pitches in to help repaint the building, install storm windows or do other 
repairs.
	Berner has been a Mason for 50 years and belongs to the local Lodge 
and the Al Sihah Temple in Macon.  He belonged to the Barnesville Rotary for 
over 15 years and tries not to miss a meeting.
	He takes an interest in politics, too, and sees President Carter as 
the fulfillment of an old southern wish.  “When I was a boy everybody here 
wanted a president from Georgia,” he said.  He’s proud the president is a 
religious leader and wishes “he could spread it out among the Congressmen and 
Senators up there.”
	Berner has been retired for at least 25 years, but he could not be 
called a typical retiree.  His religious devotion, sense of humor, and 
continued involvement with life should be a positive influence on all of us.





Additional Comments:
Berner Means was born in 1890 so while this clipping was undated, from the 
text referring to his age it can be inferred that it was written about Oct. 
1979.  A picture accompanies the orignal article.  Berner died in 1983.

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