Ivan Bartley
The Ivan Bartley story was originally written by Dick Reed and appeared in the Nov. 20, 1974, issue of the Brown County Democrat. Here we share part one of Ivan’s story.
Ivan Bartley, at 79, is a third generation Brown Countian who can look back on a career representative of his own generation. His life has been that of a farmer, factory and sawmill worker, timber man and road builder.
He lives now on the same 22 acres he bought 40 years ago along Kent Road, southwest of Belmont. His wife Rosa, died 12 years ago.
Their only daughter, Ruby Alice, lives in Bloomington where she is married to “Wob” Burch and has worked for Indiana University for over ten years.
One son, Phillip, is a heavy equipment operator for the Fleetwood’s. Their other son, James Robert, is a self-employed trucker who moved to Florida over ten years ago.
Ivan’s grandfather, Ambrose Bartley, came to Indiana from Illinois in the late 1800s and settled for a time in Green County where he married Liza Jane Cox. Shortly, they moved to Brown County and the Belmont area.
One of Ambrosia’s sons, Samuel was Ivan’s father. Samuel, and his wife, Rebecca Robertson Bartley, had a farm adjoining Ambrose’s place “up there on the ridge,” according to Ivan. That’s where Ivan was born, Nov. 14, 1895, about three miles southwest of Ivan’s present home. Samuel’s property is now state government land.
Ivan had four brothers and one sister. Wes, Leonard and Jesse have passed away but David, 81, is retired in Iola, Kan., and Martha Jane is married to Martin Barger. The Barger’s are close by, in Schooner Valley.
Ivan attended Crooked Creek school and Belmont schools but had to drop out in the eighth grade after his sister was born. His mother was sickly, and he was needed at home.
“By that time,” Ivan remembers, “I could cook as well as my mother did. She taught me from the time I was seven or eight years old. I still bake my own bread and cornbread and make cakes and pies from scratch.
“I like to garden and generally raise potatoes, tomatoes, corn, mangoes, beets and beans. I do my own canning and preserving and pickling and freezing some of my corn. There’s lots of time for that because I don’t need much sleep. I seldom go to bed before midnight and always get up 4:30 or 5 a.m. Some nights I don’t sleep two hours.
“I’ve gardened and mowed for two of my neighbors and sometimes have put in one or two days a week for them.
“I also keep busy mowing, raking, cutting brush and repairing buildings on my own place. I drive my pickup truck and use to hunt and fish a lot. But I haven’t hunted much in recent years. I got only about a dozen squirrels last year, and this year I wasn’t out at all. There was just no game this year.”
When he was about 15 years old, Ivan decided one day he was old enough to smoke cigarettes and managed to get hold of a pack of Camels. He lighted one and promptly strangled on it.
“I threw it down and stomped on it,” he says.
“I turned to the other boys and said, “Here, you take this package of cigarettes. I’m through with ‘em’. That’s the first and the last cigarette I ever had in my mouth.”
To be continued.
Submitted by Pauline Hoover, Brown County Historical Society
