References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, Janet Barker Hager, page 84.
References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, Janet Barker Hager, page 84.
References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, page 23.
Historical Notes:
(1) The Following is a newspaper article taken from the Logan Banner, circa
1936:FOUND: A MAN WHO LIVES AS HE PLEASES AND KNOWS HAPPINESS WHEN HE SEES IT
George Barker of Chapmansville District has faced the ire of his good
neighbors for his religious beliefs, but his philosophy is 2,000 years old, and
as new as tomorrow.In this day of regimented thinking and blueprint living, it is refreshing
to find a man who has chosen himself a way of life and has stuck to it despite
attempted indictments for heresy and calummation from persons who disagreed
with him.Such a fellow is George Barker of Chapmansville district, who lives with
his large family in a long, rambling valley near Curry.Mr. Barker's philosophy is not a strange one, nor is it a new one in the
point of years.It was propounded nearly two thousand years ago by a man who was hung on a
cross until dead for the precepts to which Mr. Barker holds.Mr. Barker, who reads the Bible with an eye for application to present
times and for the buried truths within the Book rather than for the literal
translations of it, discovered some thirty years ago what Christ was up against
when He brought his way of life to the people of that day.All of Mr. Barker's people were Methodist and his first deviation from
family tradition came when he was thirty years old and he decided to observe
the Sabbath on Saturday instead of on Sunday.This brought down the criticism of his neighbors, but he held to his
belief, using the Bible as basis for it, and went his way in the face of
attempted indictments for heresy.His family has been reared in this belief and it has grown and prospered.
The Saturday Sabbath, however, is only a small part of the philosophy
which has carried him through 60 years of happy living--many of them lean and
fraught with sorrow--but liveable nonetheless.He believes that this is God's word, that this is God's World, that the
people in it are God's children and are innately good and are deserving of a
fair share of the world's goods as it behooves them to seek for themselves
without infringing on the rights and lives of others.God to him is a Supreme Intelligence, directing the universe and
influencing the lives of men on this Earth, one of the smaller planets of the
celestial system.His philosophy is such that the only laws which govern him are the Ten
Commandments and the Golden Rule."We need no other laws," he points out. "The only time a law is made is
when Man deviates from the Commandments and his fellows have to license him to
protect themselves."He has spent the better part of 60 years in hard work and has to show for
his effort a happy family, well married with fine children, a lumber mill,
private swimming pool, his hime and his children's homes paid for and hundreds
of acres of lush land in the creek valley where he and his children live.Mr. Barker could live in feudal splendor in his creek valley, but he
chooses to work as hard now as he did when he was a younger man."I get pleasure from hard work," he says. "When I bought 400 acres
recently, gave all my children land and material for their homes and became
financially independent aa friend who has traveled and seen much of the world
wrote that she was glad that "Old George" had finally got tothe place where he
won't have to work so hard and can get some pleasure out of life.""Well, sir, with all the work I've done in my time and the hard knocks
I've taken, I believe I have had more honest-to-goodness pleasure than the
folks who have had a chance to see more of the world and its pleasures than I
have."Politically, Mr. Barker is just as independent, "I have voted for both the
Democratic and Republican party and once for the Socialist party, but I can
find no satisfaction in either," he explains, "so I have quit voting." My
children vote as they please though."Such is George Barker's philosophy and he doesn't have to look far to find
proof that it is a good one.He needs only to read the newspapers and listen to his radio to know that
the rest of the world is locked in bloody strife, and that even here in Logan
County there are many who are drifting aimlessly along without a rudder or a
course when it would be so simple to live happily without a care if all men
would follow a plant of living that is nearly 2,000 years old but is as new as
tomorrow.
References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, page 25, 27.
References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, page 25, 27.
References:
(1) The Barker Family of Southern West Virginia, Janet Barker Hager, page 30.