Bio-Fawcett, BessShafferBruff

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Bess (Fawcett) Shaffer Bruff
(1886-1964)

Bess Margaret (Fawcett) Shaffer Bruff was born on Sept. 20, 1886 in Kingwood, Preston County, WV, the daughter of Charles Wesley and Margaret Elizabeth (Herndon) Fawcett.

In 1897, when Bess was age 13, her mother died, and her father then married a cousin, Julia Hanshaw. The 1900 census of Preston County shows Bess residing in the Kingwood household of her sister and brother in law, Luella and Patrick Grogan. Also in the High Street residence were her unmarried sister Mamie and married brother and sister in law J. William and Susan (Murdock) Fawcett. Living next door were cousins Marcellus H. and Lydia (Caldwell) Murdock and a few houses away was great-uncle John Smart Murdock.

Bess was married twice. Her first husband is believed to have been Roy O. Shaffer ( ? - ? ). Nothing about him is known, except that he was deceased by 1920 and that he is buried in the Fawcett-Crogan-Shaffer plot in the Maplewood Cemetery in Kingwood.

In 1920, the widowed, 34-year-old Bess made her home with her married sister and brother in law, Ella and Patrick Crogan, in Kingwood, but had no occupation.

Her second husband was Thomas E. Bruff ( ? - ? ). She was a longtime secretary, and later moved to Charleston, Kanawha County, WV. Said the Preston County Journal: "Mrs. Bruff was employed in Charleston by the Workmen's Compensation Commission for a number of years before returning to Kingwood to make her home with her brother-in-law and sister, the late Mr. and Mrs. P.J. Crogan."

Circa 1959, Bess lived in Kingwood. She passed away there, at Preston Memorial Hospital, on Jan. 26, 1964, at the age of 78. Following funeral services led by Rev. Dr. John Ward Brown, she was laid to eternal rest in Maplewood Cemetery in a row with her parents and siblings.