Beverly C. Pearsall

Once upon a time in Upstate New York, about 50 miles east of the finger lakes and just North of the Pennsylvania border, for many generations were the Pearsall family and the Carter family, their relatives, and friends, living in and around the tiny towns and hamlets of Sidney, Unadilla, Bainbridge, and Norwich.

Unchanged for decades, this area was filled with dairy farms, fields filled with grazing cows, and pasture lands of corn spread across the countryside for miles. It’s still much the same way today, although modernization has forced many of the smaller farms to disappear, and more of the land has been reclaimed to its natural dense forest state.

It was in this small part of the world, during the height of the depression in the town of Sidney was born Beverly, Ann, Carter, on July 23rd, 1931, to parents, Earl Dwight Carter and Pearl Irene King who were, you guessed it, dairy farmers. Beverly was the second of the two girls. Her older sister’s name was Joyce.

As a baby, Beverly developed a whooping cough which affected her eyesight and caused double vision that she carried with her for the rest of her life. In the early 2000s she had Lasik corrective surgery which greatly helped her. She could even see pretty well without glasses, which she was so overjoyed about, thinking back to those childhood days when other children would make four-eyed faces at her which tormented her terribly.

Beverly learned at a young age that life was hard work. She had chores to do before and after school. She always used to say, “We may have been poor and had to wear the same old clothes more often than she would’ve liked, but with the depression going on, we were glad we were farmers because we always had lots and lots of food to eat.” Beverly loved healthy food. Vegetables, fruits, salads, and home cooking were always on the menu as her preference. She always said she loved her veggies, and really didn’t like meat that much. “Her mother, Pearl, did a lot of canning, and we stored all kinds of things in the cellar.” Like every family has even today, they had leftovers. Being on a farm with fresh food all around, I guess her father didn’t care for leftovers. He would sometimes say, “Cuds? Again? Cuds? Again?” That didn’t go over very well with her mother.

Their family had a hired man who lived in an adjoining room to their house. His name was Bob Bunt, whom she treasured. Beverly always remembered a story when she was a young girl having a pancake-eating contest with Bob. She beat him having eaten 18 pancakes.

As a young child Beverly was given the chance to play the violin, but she didn’t care about it. She soon switched to the piano and took quite an interest in it, learning to read sheet music as her teacher taught her. From there she progressed to the organ years later and spent the rest of her life enjoying playing the organ.

Afton Central School. Her elementary years. One day, when she was being dropped off at school, just as she was getting out of the car, a girlfriend yelled out, “Beverly, hurry up we’re going to be late!” Beverly ran out into the street and was hit by a car coming along that she didn’t see coming. The car stopped quickly but Beverly’s leg was pinned under the front tire, and she was dragged for a short distance, which peeled off a good bit of skin on the calf of her right leg. She had to go through a few skin grafts, but the injury did not do any long-term damage to the use of her leg, but it did leave quite a scar that was visible for many years.

During sweet corn season, which was around August, each year Beverly’s father would load up an old flatbed truck full of sweet corn and head off to the outskirts of New York city. The people in the city were so delighted to get fresh sweet corn from the country, that her father always came home with a good profit from his work.

As the depression years came to an end, when Beverly was 10 years old, along came WWII, and the days of rationing where you could only get so many things like sugar, flour, gasoline, and tires by using stamps as they were rationed to each family.

During this time, Earl was entering the war in 1944. He was just old enough to enter the draft. He had finished his last mission literally the same day as the atomic bomb was dropped. In fact, his B29 passed the Enola Gay traveling in opposite directions sometime in the night sky between the island of Tinian and Hiroshima. Earl came back to his hometown soon after he completed that 35th and final mission, never wanting anything to do with the military again. He was more than ready to come home. That was August of 1945.

Needless to say, with thousands of service men coming home, men and women were getting together more than the world has ever seen. Earl got married rather quickly after the war and had a son name Eddie, my half-brother, with his first wife. They were together for seven years.

When Beverly was about 18, she had an opportunity to go to the city to have surgery on her eyes, which only helped a little. She went with a friend, Ginnie Tilley. While they were on this trip away from home, they got to go down to Washington DC and visit the Pentagon. She said that the men in the building made her, and her friend feel so special as they got to tour around feeling like VIPs.

Beverly graduated from high school in 1949 as a Valedictorian, which she shared with two other girls. Now, it was off to college. Beverly knew she wanted to be either a nurse or a secretary. At nearby Del High college she opted to be a secretary. Although she never attained an associate’s degree she went right to work because jobs were plentiful during the early post-war years.

She went to work for Scintilla Magneto company in Sidney, which was later named Bendix, and subsequently to Amphenol where the company still operates to this day.

During her time at Scintilla, there was this man who kept stopping by her office quite often, which was right across the hallway from the first aid station. He would say that he needed to be tended to for first aid and was just stopping by to chat with her while he waited. Apparently, tool and dye makers get cuts and scrapes often, so he said. She didn’t like him very much at first, but after a while they started dating.

Now her sister, Joyce, quickly found out that this man was still married to another woman. To Beverly’s chagrin, Joyce went around telling everybody that Beverly was “dating a married man.” As it turns out this man was Earl Pearsall, and he did divorce his first wife. Beverly fell in love with Earl, and she married him on April 16, 1955, in Montrose, Pennsylvania.

Beverly and Earl both loved to dance their entire lives. They enjoyed jitterbugging to the swing time music of the Big Band era, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and other favorites of the 40s. She always said, “Earl was a great dancer.”

They also liked going to races. They went to Watkins Glen and other tracks around in the New York area. Even after they moved to Florida, they went to the old Eau Gallie speedway with me back in the 60s and 70s. The quarter-mile track was located just north of Aurora Road and west of Wickham Road. I still remember it vividly.

As Beverly got more acquainted with the Pearsall family she quickly fell in love with Earl’s mother, Ella. She was a real sweetheart who didn’t have an enemy in the world. Ella and her husband Graydon took care of the White Store church, which was built in 1820, and is now a national landmark, having even Revolutionary War soldiers buried there. For many years, they took care of the grounds, tending to the security of the offering box inside the entrance of the church, as well as keeping things clean. Earl even dug graves there as a young boy. Mom said many times over the years that “Ella was the dearest person in the world,” and often kidded people that she was the real reason she married Earl.

Ella lived until not that long ago. She died in 2007 at the ripe old age of 104.

Beverly and Earl continued living in their hometown for another five years. They built their own house and were having the time of their life, both working at Scintilla. Times were booming.

It was now 1960. People were hearing talk of the space program starting up in Florida. Suddenly, many people were deciding to get out of that dreary New York winter weather and were migrating to the east coast of Florida around the space center area. There were lots of jobs down there and, of course, the weather was terrific.

Earl and Beverly moved to West Melbourne Florida in 1960. They felt right at home living on a cul-de-sac on Shannon Avenue, just two streets west of Dairy Road. It was the outskirts of town then, almost like living in the country where they were from. The nearby lots were full of cows and orange groves. State Road 192 was a two-laned street, and you could saunter along crossing it at your own leisurely pace in those days.

There were so many people that had moved to Florida from their neck of the woods, that somebody started an annual festival called the “Sidney Picnic.” People from all over central Florida would come to this picnic for many years.

Beverly went to work for a company in Palm Bay called Radiation, which is now L3Harris. Earl went to work for RCA at the technical laboratory, next to Patrick Air Force Base, where for many years the decommissioned missiles were majestically mounted and displayed in front of the tech lab, as a monument to the bourgeoning space program.

Melbourne’s popular stores in those days were McCrory’s, Grants, Lums, Zayres, Sears, and JC Penney’s leading the way.

Both Beverly and Earl fell in love with water skiing on the Indian River in those early Florida years. They had their own ski boat. They were taking home movies, and just enjoying the Florida lifestyle.

Earl’s father, Graydon, had a brother named Glenn, who lived in Cocoa Beach with his wife, Helen. Glenn worked at the space center, so whenever a launch was scheduled, Glenn would hear about it firsthand. He would call down to Bev and Earl and say, “Let’s have a cookout up here this Sunday.” That was code for, “come on up here (in Cocoa Beach) so we can watch the launch up close and personal. You see, in those days, launches were so top secret, nobody was supposed to talk about it.

As time went on, the fact that Beverly had taken Earl away from his son, Eddie, weighed more and more heavily on her heart. She felt so ashamed, but true to Beverly’s character, she tried as hard as she could to love Eddie. As the years went by, the relationship between our fractured families slowly mended, and for many years now, we have grown to love each other as much as any family could, who lives as far away as we do, New York state and Florida.

In 1961, Beverly’s father passed away. He had always wanted her to have a child, but it was not meant to be before his time was up.

It was now 1963. Bev and Earl had now been married for going on eight years, and it was a second marriage for Earl. He was going on 39. Beverly was going on 32. All of their close friends already had children, and Beverly was becoming extremely anxious that she might never have any. They decided to have a New Year’s Eve party at their house that year. Mom told me years later that, “She was sure you were conceived after that party.” On September 9th Beverly’s dream came true. A boy named Randy was born in the Brevard Hospital (now Holmes Regional Medical Center), and she was never so happy. She has told me about many times over the years that, “You made my life have meaning.”

In the 1960s the world was becoming more of a sprawling metropolitan lifestyle for most Americans. Modernization of travel, planes, trains, and automobiles were making it affordable to make long-distance trips. It was during that time that Beverly and Earl decided to start making trips back to their old stomping grounds. Along with Earl’s love of deer hunting, it was decided that they would go back to New York State for a two-week vacation each year for Thanksgiving, and to re-connect with their family and friends from their old hometown.

For most of the years we went up there we stayed at Graydon and Ella’s place of residence for the duration of our visit. Earl would get up at 4:00 a.m. and go deer hunting with his father Graydon, his brother-in-law, Bruce, and Bruce’s son Bobby. Dad was always proud to say that he got a deer each and every year that he went up there. When they got home from deer hunting, I would help cut up the meat and make hamburgers. Inside, Beverly, Ella, Beverly’s sister-in-law Jean, and Jean’s daughter, Bonnie, would package and freeze the meat. They were the same ladies that made the Thanksgiving banquet every year for many years, a feast that still carries great memories today of the family getting together at Ella’s house, which were some of the fondest memories that our family ever had. We were truly blessed.

Another adventure we looked forward to while we were up there, was our trip to visit the Cope family in Waterville. They were our cousins. Garry Cope, the patriarch, was an airline pilot for Allegheny, which eventually became US Air. Garry and his wife Sharon had three children, Bambi, Darin, and Sheila. They all lived on a rather large farm of apple trees, strawberries, and other types of fruits and vegetables. Garry loved restoring old antique cars. He must have restored dozens of cars, and went to auto shows for many years, showing off his talent. We all loved our cousins very much.

I was so proud of my hardworking extended family. I always felt like my friends in Florida had it too easy. When I saw how much work that my relatives were doing in New York, my heart would fill with joy being around them, and I would feel ashamed, having not worked anywhere near as hard as they did. Their life was simple, some would say boring, but my heart had so much pride in my extended family in New York state.

As I continued to grow up, mom and dad spent more time educating me in the same way that our family roots educated everybody in our family. Hard work! At an early age I was helping dad outside with yard work, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, hoeing weeds, and grass from underneath orange trees, trimming hedges and palm trees. You name it. Mom would chip right in too. She would be out there with rake in hand, raking leaves, pulling sand spurs in the back yard, washing windows and screens, painting the house every so often. She would be the last one to quit most of the time no matter what we were doing.

After all was said and done, we had the prettiest little house on the street, all of the work completed by the three of us. I always took pride in that whenever I came home from being away somewhere.

Our life as a family went in stages. From age 8 to 15 I spent most of my time playing in city league sports like baseball, and basketball. Mom and dad were very supportive, coming to nearly all of my games during those years. During that time, we also went camping. Dad’s company, RCA, had a camping club, the RCA Camping Club, mostly during the summertime months of May through September. We went camping all through central Florida.

When mom wasn’t cooking or cleaning in our house, she would often visit a friend of hers somewhere in town. Many of these friends were older and sickly. Most of her friends were worse off than she was. Other times, she dabbled in crafts, crochet, needlepoint, and quilting. She was a good seamstress. She mended so many of our clothes over the years I can’t even begin to imagine how much work she put into doing that.

In 1985, dad retired from RCA. They moved into Arrowood manufactured home park (which is now called Palm Lake Estates). Beverly retired a few years later. This was a BIG change. For the first time, they both were exposed to a major social change in the way they had been living. I was finishing up college and about to be on my own. They now had a lot less responsibilities, and they began to enjoy life. Dad joined the men’s golf league at the Melbourne golf course. He also played golf with other Arrowood men in special outings and tournaments all around central Florida. There were cookouts on holidays. They made friends galore. They had time to do fun activities. Walking with others. Bowling. Swimming. Shuffleboard, Dancing. Sports Week and just taking it easy. Almost every week somebody was having a birthday party or a get-together. This period was the happiest time in their lives. All the hard work of saving their money over the years had paid off in retirement, so they could both enjoy the fruits of their labor. Probably most of all, feeling secure in a 55+ community park where everyone looked out for one another.

When dad was nearing 80, and mom was in her early 70s, living the adult active senior life and taking care of your property began to take its toll. Worring about hurricane damage potential to a manufactured house got them thinking to move into a safer structure for their older years, so, they moved into The Fairways condominiums in 2005. Beverly still wouldn’t quit, however. I won’t say she was the instigator, but she definitely helped get the Fairways tenants more inspired to have social occasions, parties and cookouts, and holiday celebrations. Everyone knows how patriotic she was, putting flags up for every flag day on the calendar. She just couldn’t sit around and do nothing and just get old. She wouldn’t have it that way.

Beverly knew that she never had a good memory. She often got frustrated why she couldn’t remember things from her past, well before she got dementia. Her family. Her adventures. Even our trips to New York. Most things became faded memories.

She worked so hard, but always felt self-conscious that she wasn’t doing enough. I told her so many times, “Mom, you (her and dad) always invited people over to our house twice as often as others would invite us to their house. You always did so much to entertain and be a good friend.”

I must say that the Pearsall men, her husband, and his father, were very rigid in their thinking and emotionally closed off. We were not allowed to voice a differing opinion that could lead to an argument, whether it was educational or simply an opinion. “The men were right, and that’s the way it’s going to be!”

She often felt left out of conversations because she had vocal trouble, and because she was too weak emotionally to assert her opinion, because of the way the men in her life treated her.

She always made friends with people who were challenged in some way. She always found beauty in the smallest of things or in ways she could help.

She had great pride in always keeping her house clean, right up to the day she had her stroke.

She wrote Christmas cards to everyone she knew. Our house, for many years, probably had nearly 100 Christmas cards strung up on the walls in December.

I quoted to her several times Proverbs 31, the woman of noble character. This passage summed her talents up perfectly. If you want to know her or remember her, just read that passage.

One day, several years ago, a girl friend of mine emphatically said to me (regarding finding a wife), “Randy, you’re not going to find a woman like her.” I replied. “I know!”

She was smart. She was patient. She was kind. She was loving, and she definitely was hard working.

She was the wife of a war hero, and the best mother a son could ever ask for.

A celebration of life for Beverly will be held Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 11:00 AM at Fountainhead Funeral Home, 7359 Babcock Street SE, Palm Bay, FL 32909.