Marion McKinley CHAMBERLAIN, Sr., son of John F. CHAMBERLAIN and Amanda ASHBY; born 16 July 1896, Webster Co., KY; died 1 March 1983 at Redbanks Nursing Home in Henderson, Henderson Co., KY; buried at Springdale Cemetery Sebree, Webster Co., KY.

Bessie Mae WALKER, daughter of John David Walker and Rosa Avery THOMAS; born 19 Oct. 1898, Webster Co., KY; died 7 Nov. 1988, Redbanks Nursing Home, Henderson, Henderson Co., KY; buried 9 Nov. 1988, Springdale Cemetery, Sebree, Webster Co., KY.

Marion & Bessie eloped, taking the train to Evansville, Vanderburgh Co., IN where they married 8 Dec. 1916.

FROM: Newspaper of Henderson, KY, by Sylvia Slaughter [about 1980]:

[A PHOTO OF Marion & Bessie (WALKER) CHAMBERLAIN was included here; Picture by Bill Kyle, Sunday staff photographer]:

"The Chamberlains: More than six decades together
Like good wine, their love
has grown better with age
By SYLVIA SLAUGHTER, Feature editor
HENDERSON, Ky. - One of his liver-spotted hands reached out for hers. An automatic act, a gesture unrehearsed. A reflex, almost.
His had bore the markings of manual labor, of long hours behind the plow, of lifting heavy bales, of coaxing a livelihood from the land.
His were the hands of old age.
Hers, too.
The lye soap she had made, the clothes she had scrubbed on a washboard every Monday for years in water boiled in a kettle over an open flame outdoors; the tons of 'taters' she had peeled, the hungry mouths she had fed had all taken their toll: Her wrinkled hands told the same tale of hard work as did his. Her left hand, however, lay immobile; turned derelict, as did the entire left side of her body, following a series of strokes.
But they sat there - the two of them - in their wheelchairs, lovers still; holding hands, sharing bits and pieces of a history they had logged together.
A history that began on Dec. 18, 1916, 'A red letter day,' Marion Chamberlain said, explaining, 'Bessie's dad wouldn't let me have her but I took her anyway.' Where he took her was to the altar: Bessie Walker, 17, and Marion Chamberlain, 20, slipped away from her father's farm in Webster County and took the train to Evansville where they were married. 'We just up and eloped,' Chamberlain said. That was 64 anniversaries ago, a lifetime interwoven with ups, downs and in-betweens, but never without the continuity of caring.
'She was my auburn-haired lady, my lady love,' Chamberlain said. His was an unqualified love: 'Not like the boys' of today. Why I married Bessie without even having seen her ankles!' Bessie glowed. For the time, she was present in body - and in mind. Sometimes, her memory falls prey to the strokes' vengeance. But not then.
And her husband all but did handsprings when she turned to him a nd asked: 'Dad, do you remember that Rosie and Rube got hitched the same day we did?' Chamberlain remembered. Rosie and Rube were friends from their past, long buried in their memories and all but forgotten until the couple began to reminisce about their wedding day.
'I wore a white waist and dark skirt for the wedding,' Bessie says. 'You, Dad, wore a shirt and tie. That was one time you didn't wear your durned overalls.' Her husband, she says, never liked a stiff, starched look.
Chamberlain nods knowingly. A 64-year-old union leaves for few secrets. 'Bessie always even figured out where I hid my moonshine,' he said, grinning the grin of a man who once paid the husbandly price of nipping a little too much hard mash on long-ago occasions.
When his wife would come across his liquor jugs, Bessie indignantly dumped them on the ground, with this exception: 'I saved just enough to make the children's cough medicine,' she said. 'Children had bad coughs then. Our first home was a log cabin with so many cracks in the floor that we could see the chickens nesting down underneath.'
To cover the cracks that gave entry to those drafts that caused the colds in her family, Mrs. Chamberlain hooked rag rugs. And to make the cabin more like home, she papered the walls with newspapers, made curtains from flour and feed sacks and crocheted afghans.
In spite of her lame left hand, Bessie still 'crochets' in her room at Redbanks, a nursing home where she and her husband now reside. Her afghans today have the meandering mistakes akin to a child's first efforts at the art.
But Bessie's happy with the results. Happy, because she doesn't recognize her mistakes. Happy, because she thinks she's still at the couple's home in Sebree. 'It's purt near time for you to set me out some green onions in the garden,' she tells her husband.
Marion Chamberlain pats his wife's hand, a faraway look in his eyes. When Mrs. Chamberlain was moved to Redbanks for health care last year, he stayed in their home. But without Bessie around, the days grew long; then longer. Finally, he asked if he, too, could live at the facility.
He's there now because, as he said, 'the bed at home was just too big for one man. I needed to be closer to my lady. I have no notion of ever leaving her.' Almost as if she understood, Bessie reached out with her liver-spotted hand. 'I love you an armful, Dad,' she said.
And then the ravage of time left its calling card: 'But you've just got to plant my onions!'''

NOTES ON NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Bessie's dad was John David "Johnie" WALKER. Rube was Rube WALKER, Bessie's uncle.

Marion died first on 1 March 1983. Bessie lived on being spoon fed by someone else for a number of years, unable to recognize anyone, before she died on 7 Nov. 1988, states researcher Harriet (Zimmer) ODOM.

From: "The Sebree Banner" newspaper of Sebree, Webster Co., KY: OBITUARY OF BESSIE (WALKER) CHAMBERLAIN:
"BESSIE CHAMBERLAIN
Mrs. Bessie Chamberlain, 90 of Sebree died early Monday morning, November 7 at Redbanks in Henderson.
She is preceded in death by her husband, Marion Chamberlain.
She is survived by four sons, Ivan Chamberlian of Sebree, Vinyl Chamberlain of Evansville, Indiana, Marion Chamberlain, Jr., and Franklin Chamberlain, both of Henderson; one sister, Connie Odom of Sebree; nine grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandchildren; three step-grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
Funeral services were held Wednesday morning at 11:00 from Tompkins Sebree Chapel with B. F. Major officiating.
Burial was in Springdale Cemetery."

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