WILKES COUNTY, NC - MISC - Birthday of Mrs. Catherine Beshears Church
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			   July 28, 1942

			Has 325 Descendants

		  Remarkable Wilkes Women Reaches 96

(Special to The Journal)


     Elkin. – Her 325 living descendants, along with friends scattered all 
over Northwestern North Carolina, will honor Mrs. Catherine Beshears Church, 
of Summit community in Wilkes County, as she celebrates her ninety-sixth 
birthday today.
     A member of the widely-known Beshears family of Wilkes County, famous for 
large families, rugged health, and long lives, Mrs. Church is in excellent 
health despite her age and is recognized as one of the most remarkable women 
of the section.
        She is the widow of Henry Harrison Church, who died in 1917, and the 
mother of thirteen children, nine of whom are living.  She has 67 
grandchildren, 168 great-grandchildren, and 81 great-great-grandchildren.

		Brother Active at 92

      One of her brothers, William M. Beshears, is still active at the age of 92.
Strong women of the hills that she is, Mrs. Church looks upon immense hardships as 
mere trifles, and a vivid memory serves her in recalling a more strenuous day than 
this.  It was in the latter days of the War Between the States that she married 
her girlhood sweetheart and neighbor.  Anyone "getting started" then faced 
difficulties that so far outrank present day wartime inconveniences that 
comparisons are absurd, Mrs. Church believes.
         Born at what is now Summit, up in the edge of Wilkes, almost on the Ashe 
County line and near the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mrs. Church was the daughter of Aaron 
Beshears and one of a large family of children.  Her father was an industrious 
mountain farmer and successful stock raiser, the owner of a large tract of 
mountain land.  
       In her childhood, Mrs. Church recalls that there were no markets in that 
remote section far removed from a good road.
       As a young wife she stayed busy with carding, spinning and weaving the wool 
shorn from the sheep on Church's tract while her husband, a crack marksman, had 
only to stroll over the forest-covered hills, inhabited then by wildgame, bear and 
deer, too produce meat for the family meals.
       Since her husbands death, Mrs. Church has visited among her children, the 
living ones of whom are: J.W. Church, H.L. Church, and D.J. Church of Summit; Mrs. 
James Chappell, Winston-Salem; Mrs. D.S. Lee, Patterson; Mrs. C.C. Kees and Mrs. 
M.M. Phillips, Hickory; Mrs. E.R. Mikeal, Todd, Ashe County, and W.S. Church, 
Boonville. 
*Catherine Beshears Church lived to be 97, died in 1943, had 330 descendants at 
death.