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Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Dorothy Jones Baughman Papers, A&M 4249, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Scope and Contents

Correspondence and genealogical information of Dorothy Jones Baughman gathered by her great niece Barbara Rasmussen. Dorothy Baughman was born in Doddridge County in October 1897, died in Morgantown in January 1979, and was buried in the Belington Fraternal Cemetery. These papers reflect the life of her family at the turn of the twentieth century in north central West Virginia.

Correspondence between Dorothy and her father, her grandmother, and her husband form the bulk of the collection. There are also Civil War letters, photographs, and ephemera such as dance cards, Valentines, and Christmas cards. Names that occur in the collection include Jones, Neely, Baughman, Devecmon, Sinnex, Randolph, Cook, and Shetler, among others.

She was the only child of Charles Henry Jones and Julia Delmond Neely Jones, born on a farm near Smithburg, Doddridge County.

Dorothy Delmond Jones of Doddridge County and Belington, Barbour County, was a 1914 freshman at WVU, where she was active in Greek life and campus affairs. She and other women students acted as nurses during the 1917 influenza epidemic. She became a teacher after her graduation in 1920.

She lived her early life on the farm that had remained in the Jones family since the end of the American Revolution. Owing to the rise of coal mining in northern West Virginia her father left the farm to accept a position as bookkeeper for the Kane and Keyser hardware company, moving his family to Belington early in the twentieth century. The farm, however, remained in the family. The letters in the collection provide insight into what the experience of transitioning from farming to town life was like for this middle-class family.

In Belington, she was active in her town's new chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. During the Great Depression, Dorothy was an insurance agent whose firm covered the losses of many homes to fire. Her letters to her husband at this time shed light on the impact that economic difficulty worked upon middle class families.

She was married to Olga Odburt Baughman of Tacy Community in Barbour County after he returned from France, where he served as company barber during World War I. Their correspondence spans three decades. They had one son, John Jones Baughman who served in the US Army during World War II. His letters to his family include many V-mail messages that occasionally included the number of bombing runs he completed, secreted in his signature.

U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph, a family friend, aided with the appointment of her husband to the Post Master position in Belington. As a niece of Senator M.M. Neely, she was active in politics and was the first woman to serve on the Barbour County Democratic Executive Committee.

Their son died in a collision with a train in Tunnelton in 1945, which tragedy drove Dorothy to launch a campaign for installation of warning signals on highways that crossed railroad tracks.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Baughman, Dorothy Jones, 1897-1979
• Depression.
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Soldiers' letters