Raymond, Alma, Cleo and Betty Motsinger
Two Generations Giving Back for Generations to Come
They were a close-knit family of four. They worked hard every day on their farm for many years, but still found time to enjoy life. Now these two generations of Motsingers will give back to the youth of Washington County forever.
Raymond and Alma (Mahuron) Motsinger started the family legacy. Raymond was born in Franklin Township on March 30, 1895 to Edward and Delia (Graves) Motsinger. Alma was born on December 13, 1898 to Phillip and Nora Mahuron. For Ray it was love at first sight. He always claimed that the first time he ever saw Alma he “knew she would be his wife.” He was right. They were married on October 23, 1919 and they had 53 happy years together on their farm in Pierce Township.
It was a lot of hard work for Raymond and Alma. They did not have tractors in the early years. With his horse and plow, Raymond raised small grain and started a dairy. He sold milk to residents of Louisville, Kentucky and Salem, and also the Cheese Factory in Salem.
“Times were hard,” recalled Betty Motsinger, Raymond and Alma’s daughter-in-law. “They milked the cows twice a day and cooled the milk in the Springhouse. It was a building that had a stream running through it.”
Alma raised chickens and laying hens and sold the eggs to the hatchery. They also raised some hogs and sold those in Louisville.
Raymond and Alma were members of the Primitive Baptist Olive Branch Church. They also belonged to the American Legion Auxiliary and the Pekin Grange.
On December 11, 1920 Alma gave birth to their only child, Cleo. For the next 20 years, the family continued to work the farm in Franklin Township. In 1941, Cleo decided to go into the farming business with his father, so the family purchased the 178-acre “Old Newlon” farm in Pierce Township. They kept their dairy operation and actually drove the cattle from the old farm to the new farm.
Betty Stonecipher was born on March 2, 1927 to Tom and Lula (Kintner) Stonecipher. Like most teenagers, she enjoyed hanging out at the ice cream parlor and other places popular to teens at the time. Even though Cleo and Betty both attended Salem High School, it was at one of these local hangouts that they met. They dated for one year and then Cleo was drafted and served two years in an army infantry division during WWII. He was primarily stationed in Germany.
“It was very lonely while he was away,” recalled Betty. “Everybody else had boyfriends in the service. You just accepted it. We wrote to each other every day. He never wrote much about the danger. He wrote mainly about the towns and the people, but not about the fighting. Cleo was a very quiet, private person, but he was always thinking.”
Cleo returned from the war in March and promptly proposed. “First he asked me,” remembers Betty. “Then he got on his knees and asked my mother for my hand. That is a memory that I will always have.”
Cleo and Betty were married on June 29, 1946 and promptly started working the farm. “It was a whole new world for me, “ recalled Betty. “I went from the city where we had running water, to a house on a farm with no running water and a wood stove. In the winter, the water in the bucket in the kitchen would freeze. We wore a lot of clothes in the winter! In the summer we just left the windows open. You never thought about locking the doors and windows back then. ”
Betty recalled, “I learned how to milk cows, birth claves, raise a large garden and ‘put up’ much of what we raised in the garden for the winter months. I put up tomatoes, corn, tomato juice, pickles and at least 100 quarts of green beans. I learned to bale hay and reached a point where a field of hay was a beautiful picture to me. Doesn’t love do strange things to you?”
When asked what she enjoyed most about living on a farm, Betty stated, “I loved going out into a field and finding a new born calf. There is so much beauty in the country. In the spring everything comes alive. In the fall nature takes a nap. Every season has beauty. Even the snow was pretty.
Cleo and Betty spent all of their 47 years of marriage working side by side. “We would take day trips to surrounding counties when it rained, but we would have to return to the farm in the evening to get the milking done,” stated Betty. “We really enjoyed those trips. When we arrived home in the evening, we would always think, ‘wasn’t that a nice day?’”
After many years of farming, Cleo and Betty retired. “We had seven years together after we retired. I am so glad we had that time together. We enjoyed every day,” stated Betty. “Cleo went to the hospital on March 28, 1993 and died on April 5, 1993. I sold the farm one year later, on February 26, 1994 and then moved to town on March 28, 1994.”
In 2003, Betty established the Raymond, Alma, Cleo and Betty Motsinger Scholarship Fund with the Washington County Community Foundation. This fund will provide scholarships to graduating high school seniors at Eastern High School. “I wanted to give back to the community that helped us run our farm,” stated Betty. “We farmed in Franklin and Pierce Township. We hired boys from the high school and grade school to help us put up hay. I still know a lot of the ones that helped us. Cleo loved children and they loved him for who he was, not for what he did for them. A scholarship fund just makes sense for us. We had a good life. We’ve been blessed with family and friends but we have to give God credit for all the good things that have happened.”
Betty passed away on January 2, 2019.
