Meet Bess Wyant Wellons

My maternal grandmother’s actual name was Bessie Ethel Wyant. I don’t remember anyone, including my grandfather, calling her Bessie. We named my daughter Sarah Bess Dixon in her honor. (Bessie really wouldn’t sound right!). When my mom passed, I had to research to find out what her middle name was... I knew it started with an E., but had no idea it was Ethel.

My mom called her “Mom”. Never “Mommy”. My dad really didn’t call her by name much, but called her Bess if he had to specify he was talking to her.

She was the grandparent that I was closest to...by a long shot. I loved all of my grandparents and they treated me great, but Mammaw Wellons and I were really close. I think that was true for my brothers too. Is their something that makes you closer to your mom’s parents? Or was it that my Dixon grandparents had such a large family? Or that they were descendants of English and German ancestors?

She was one of 8 kids of Charles B. “Charley” Wyant and Mary Elisabeth Carson Wyant. She was born in Springfield, Missouri. She was born 1n 1908 and died in 1969. Some of her siblings were born in Kansas and some in Newkirk, Oklahoma on land that was owned by Native Americans just prior to their birth. There was a “land rush” like that written about in the history books, after the federal government bought the land in the 1890’s. I did hear a few stories about these great grandparents (not so good in his case).

She was a housewife and I have no record of her working outside the home like my mom and my aunts generally did before they were married or before they had kids. To me, it seemed that she lived for her kids and grandkids. She was a lot of fun to be with. I actually lived with my grandparents for 6 months when I was 5 years old because my brother Jay had rheumatic fever and had to stay home from school and my brother Todd was still a toddler. I still remember that time in some detail and I thought it was great!

She died instantly when having her 3rd heart attack. She was always overweight when I knew her and was a smoker for many years. She lost some weight after the first heart attack, but never exercised and regained some of the weight. The damage to her heart was too much. She was just 59 years old when she died on the way back from a short car trip with my grandfather. I was 15 years old. He arrived at our house late at night to tell us, but we were still up because it was the night of the first moon landing.

One of the things I’ve noticed in reviewing some old family photos that my mom had saved, was that my grandmother was not always heavy. In fact, she appears to only have put on significant weight in her 40’s and 50’s. I was really shocked to see her so thin as a mom and even very young grandmother.  I remember her losing weight after the first heart attack, but one picture shows that she was almost at a normal weight for a short time. She looked so good and so healthy! To lose her when I was 15 was hard.

The last picture above is the easy one. That’s my grandmother Bess Wellons with my older brother Jay sitting on her lap. She’s a proud grandma.

The middle picture is precious because it is the first picture we have of young Bessie Wellons. I had to scrape to uncover an inscription done in fluid female handwriting. It says, “Bessie, Bob and Mary Alice at Mrs. Wyant’s house on Morton St”. So now I have to see if I can find a Morton Street address for Mary Carson Wyant.

The top picture needs some confirmation. My best guess for now is that it is a picture of the Wyant brothers and sisters, along with some spouses. I was struck when I saw this by the look of confidence that my grandmother had as she goes front and center and drapes her arm around the guy who I think is her older brother Fred Wyant. Still not sure about any of this. This picture would be after her first heart attack and she had lost weight.