Minnie L. Everman

Minnie L. Everman

Cartersville, Georgia


In the presence of her family and her friends, Minnie L. Everman quietly and peacefully passed from her physical life here in earth on December 7, 2004. A lifelong Christian with a firm and steady belief in God, her spirit lives on forever as she passes on to another life in another place not on earth.

Christened Mary Arminnie Bradford for her two grandmothers (Mary Bradford and Arminnie Duncan), she began her life at 11:30pm on September 14, 1909 in the tiny crossroads hamlet of Kehoe, Kentucky. Nestled in Greenup County in the Northeast section of Kentucky at the intersection of two State routes and three streams, Kehoe was a thriving community in the early 1900’s. Named after a former Governor of Kentucky, Kehoe was once known as Cooperville because it was home to a number of Cooper families and it contained a “cooper” shop where Minnie’s grandfather made barrel staves.

As a teenager, she and her mother legally changed her name to “Minnie L” Bradford and for the rest of her life she was known as Minnie. The third of seven children raised by her parents, Robert Winton Bradford and Harriet Eleanor Duncan Bradford, she was a sickly child, suffering through a number of illnesses and diseases during her adolescent years.

In her own words:

“I must have been a stubborn little scamp as a child. My brothers Todd and Curtis had a goat, complete with harness and wagon and seemed to delight in riding me in the wagon around the house, making quick turns to “spill” me. But I would get right up and ask for more. Curtis loved to tease me and one time I hit him with my china-headed doll. Well, it resulted in a broken doll and a ruptured carbuncle on his neck as it knocked him out. I cried and cried over what I had done.”

Her only living sibling, sister Della Conley, resides in West Milton, Ohio.

For many years, Minnie’s family operated a General Store and Post Office in Kehoe where she recalled her father as

“a very kind and friendly man, a great conversationalist, liked by everyone. He was always inviting most anyone for the noon meal, impromptu. Fortunately, my mother always rose to the occasion. He never once punished me, but I had seen him punish my brothers so I knew that his word was gospel.”

Minnie’s mother, on the other hand, was the

“quiet, saintly type and could shame us into angels, almost. She read to us a lot in the evenings. Her hobby was quilting and she made many quilts from her own patterns using various scraps of fabric.”

As a young woman, Minnie aspired to be a teacher and she attended Morehead Normal School in Morehead, Kentucky for two years as she earned her Teaching Certificate. But after a brief career as a teacher, she decided that teaching was not

“my cup of tea even though it was a joy to watch the little ones progress so rapidly. Besides, another person of great interest appeared on the scene and I decided that I wanted a Mrs. Degree rather than return to college to get my certificate renewed.”

In the midst of the USA’s Great Depression on September 17, 1932, clad in her senior prom dress, Minnie was married to William Russell Everman in the home of the local Methodist pastor in the city of Greenup, Kentucky. The next day, she and her new husband departed for Dayton, Ohio where they were to spend the next thirty-eight years until they retired in 1970 and began to travel the USA in an Avion camping trailer, eventually making their new home in Southern California.

Minnie and her husband raised three children in Dayton:

· Betty, now living in Upland, California
· Patricia, now living in Cartesville, Georgia
· John, now living in Atlanta, Georgia

In her own words,

"I have never held a paying job since teaching, but have always been active in church work and neighborhood activities and I held many offices in Eastern Star, including Worthy Matron in 1968. I was also Mother Advisor of Rainbow for Girls for two years and an Advisory Board member until we retired.”

Minnie lived her life quietly and humbly. One of God’s saints, she never sought out credit or recognition for all of the good deeds she performed in her lifetime. She loved to crochet and to quilt as a hobby and she spent many hours making gifts for her family, for her friends, and for people she never knew or never met. Soon after the death of her husband in 1990, she moved to Cartersville, Georgia where she, in effect, started her “new” life without her husband of many years.

She never complained. She never blasphemed or criticized other people. She always had a smile on her face and a song in her heart. She always wanted to be around her family. She never displayed or verbalized a depressed or “grouchy” disposition. She always tried to serve her God by serving others.

A devoted mother and wife, she wrote these words before her death:


MY NEXT TO THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

More important than money, some of the things I give to my children and my children’s children, of whom I am very proud:

· I give love……….a lifetime full of it; love that you give generously and you earn full measure of in return
· I give happy memories………….for these are the woven fabrics of our lives
· And long life and an appreciation for it………even as I have found it ever so wonderful


All in all, If I had to relive my life, I am not sure I would change much of it, if any. Over the years, though, I have wondered why God kept puny little old me here while my good, productive brothers were taken suddenly. But I will abide by His infinite wisdom and do the best I can to serve Him.”