St. Clair County Obits

BESSIE PEARL STARK WEAVER PARSCALE

Bessie Pearl Stark was born on October 29, 1896, in her parents' home near Harper and Iconium, to John Clements Stark and Cynthia Ann Car Stark. She was the youngest of four children, with brothers, Daniel, Frances and Jesse. On November 4, 1914, she and Houston Norflete Weaver were married. He died on March 9, 1924, leaving Bessie with two daughters, Jessie Ellice Weaver and Lucille Pearl Weaver. On June 10, 1925, she was married to Jessie M. Parscale at Osceola. She became the step-mother of Dorothy, Orpha Lee, James and Jay Parscale. She resided in Brownington about 40 years, moving with Jesse to Deepwater in 1970, where she lived until one year ago, when she entered Sycamore View Nursing Home, until her death on March 13, 1992. She is survived by one daughter, Jessie Cole; three granddaughters, Louanna Simmons of Kansas, Suzan Nolan of South Dakota and Connie Howle of South Dakota; six great-grandchildren, step-daughter, Orpha Lee Norris, and 11 step-grandchildren. She created beauty where she could, using everyday things around her in quilting, in crocheted and embroidered pieces, in the thousands of well-planned and nourishing meals she prepared. She loved flowers; long ago the rows of bright annuals bloomed alongside rows of corn and potatoes, roses climbed trellises and daffodils shared springtime gold under her care, and windowsills were bright with geraniums and Christmas cactus. A clean and orderly house welcomed friends and family every day, no matter how busy she was with seasonal chores. Traditional values instilled in her during childhood remained a part of her adult life - frugality, practicality, a slow and conservative approach to anything new, along with the feeling that "new" wasn't necessarily "better". Her quiet faith in her God and His Promises guided her and sustained her through the loss of two husbands, a daughter, most of her relatives and lifelong friends and through the many setbacks and disappointments life hands to all of us. She was a very private person, an anachronism who perhaps was sometimes not entirely comfortable with the fast moving pace of life around her, but the stability and unchanging views she held about what was good and bad, right and wrong, served as a reminder, a lesson, a caution to all around her that some things, some values and truths are forever. We who loved her will miss her, but we are joyful in our certainty that she is now in the wonderful second phase of her life, for which the first was lived. Funeral services were held on March 15, 1992, at the Sickman & Dunning Chapel with the Reverend Forrest Rutherford officiating. Burial was in the Maplewood Cemetery in Brownington.