Beulah A. Foley
Mrs. Beulah A. Foley was born January 9, 1907, in Irvine, Kentucky, the third child of John Headley and Dora Wilson Amerine. She had one brother, Orron W. Amerine, and three sisters, Lelia Arnett, Catherine Seale, and Agnes Rogers. Beulah married to Ross E. (Buck) Foley, a long-time employee of L&N Railroad and mayor of Ravenna, Kentucky.
Two of Beulah’s early interests remained with her for her entire life, music and sports. For a time she played piano for silent movies in an Irvine theatre. Throughout her life, she enjoyed going to concerts and listening to music. She also developed an early interest in sports, playing on her high school girls’ basketball team. She was a charter member of the Estill County Country Club and a member of the Central Kentucky Women’s Golfing Association. She played golf throughout the state and won a number of trophies. When she was no longer an active participant, she remained a passionate (and occasionally argumentative) fan of the Kentucky Wildcats and her beloved Cincinnati Reds.
Another subject that could always start, and frequently prolong, a conversation was politics. Lifelong Democrats, she and Buck followed local, state and national politics with great interest. Along with their close friends, Irvine Mayor R. W. Smith and his wife Elizabeth, they kept up with political races and sometimes traveled to inaugurations. According to Col. Elizabeth R. Smith, Jr. daughter of R.W. and Elizabeth Smith and the Foley’s unofficial niece, the two couples also enjoyed going on fishing trips and watching baseball together. Col. Smith recalls that when she was young, the Foleys often shared her birthday celebrations and that Buck once helped her successfully argue that her allowance should be raised from 50 to 75 cents a week.
Beulah also enjoyed travel. She journeyed through all 50 states and a number of European countries. Much as she loved to travel, however, she also loved to return to her home on Poplar Street in Ravenna where she lived for so many years.
Many people in Ravenna and the surrounding part of Estill County knew Beulah Foley best from her years in the Ravenna Post Office. She was appointed Postmistress in 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and she remained in that position for thirty years. In the early days, before the Highway Post office began to transport mail to and from the postal center in Lexington, she spent much time hand sorting, hand canceling mail and bagging it for shipping by rail.
A number of the Post Office regulars who came by daily to pick up mail from postal boxes didn’t have to bother with remembering their combinations. They would just ask at the window and get hand delivery. Rural patrons were sometimes surprised when Beulah made unscheduled deliveries to their homes. The one she remembered most vividly was a trip to Cob Hill on a snowy Christmas morning to deliver a box of live chickens that might not have made it sitting in the Post office through a long holiday weekend.
Beulah believed in civic involvement. She was a charter member of the Estill County Hospital Auxiliary, as well as a member of the Estill County Garden Club, the Irvine-Ravenna Women’s Club, and the Elisha Witt Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which she served for many years as treasurer. She was always generous in the time she devoted to these organizations.
But with all these activities and interests, the center of Beulah’s life remained her family. She loved going to family gatherings at the holidays and other times and visiting frequently with her sisters. She was virtually the designated family driver and spent much time in the summer taking her nephews to state parks, historic shrines, baseball games and anywhere else she and they thought might be interesting. These trips always seemed to include amusing and unexpected mishaps that would become the basis of funny stories to be told and retold for years at family gatherings.
On May 21, 1998, Beulah Foley died in the home where she had spent most of her life. She had lived through much of the twentieth century. Though she had traveled widely throughout her life, she remained at heart an Estill Countian. And though she met many people and had many acquaintances in distant places, she was essentially a private person who enjoyed and loved her close friends and the members of her family. Beulah would probably question the whole idea of being given an award for just living the kind of life she wanted to live. But she would also have been pleased and proud that so many friends remembered her and wanted to say ‘Thank You.”
Two of Beulah’s early interests remained with her for her entire life, music and sports. For a time she played piano for silent movies in an Irvine theatre. Throughout her life, she enjoyed going to concerts and listening to music. She also developed an early interest in sports, playing on her high school girls’ basketball team. She was a charter member of the Estill County Country Club and a member of the Central Kentucky Women’s Golfing Association. She played golf throughout the state and won a number of trophies. When she was no longer an active participant, she remained a passionate (and occasionally argumentative) fan of the Kentucky Wildcats and her beloved Cincinnati Reds.
Another subject that could always start, and frequently prolong, a conversation was politics. Lifelong Democrats, she and Buck followed local, state and national politics with great interest. Along with their close friends, Irvine Mayor R. W. Smith and his wife Elizabeth, they kept up with political races and sometimes traveled to inaugurations. According to Col. Elizabeth R. Smith, Jr. daughter of R.W. and Elizabeth Smith and the Foley’s unofficial niece, the two couples also enjoyed going on fishing trips and watching baseball together. Col. Smith recalls that when she was young, the Foleys often shared her birthday celebrations and that Buck once helped her successfully argue that her allowance should be raised from 50 to 75 cents a week.
Beulah also enjoyed travel. She journeyed through all 50 states and a number of European countries. Much as she loved to travel, however, she also loved to return to her home on Poplar Street in Ravenna where she lived for so many years.
Many people in Ravenna and the surrounding part of Estill County knew Beulah Foley best from her years in the Ravenna Post Office. She was appointed Postmistress in 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and she remained in that position for thirty years. In the early days, before the Highway Post office began to transport mail to and from the postal center in Lexington, she spent much time hand sorting, hand canceling mail and bagging it for shipping by rail.
A number of the Post Office regulars who came by daily to pick up mail from postal boxes didn’t have to bother with remembering their combinations. They would just ask at the window and get hand delivery. Rural patrons were sometimes surprised when Beulah made unscheduled deliveries to their homes. The one she remembered most vividly was a trip to Cob Hill on a snowy Christmas morning to deliver a box of live chickens that might not have made it sitting in the Post office through a long holiday weekend.
Beulah believed in civic involvement. She was a charter member of the Estill County Hospital Auxiliary, as well as a member of the Estill County Garden Club, the Irvine-Ravenna Women’s Club, and the Elisha Witt Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which she served for many years as treasurer. She was always generous in the time she devoted to these organizations.
But with all these activities and interests, the center of Beulah’s life remained her family. She loved going to family gatherings at the holidays and other times and visiting frequently with her sisters. She was virtually the designated family driver and spent much time in the summer taking her nephews to state parks, historic shrines, baseball games and anywhere else she and they thought might be interesting. These trips always seemed to include amusing and unexpected mishaps that would become the basis of funny stories to be told and retold for years at family gatherings.
On May 21, 1998, Beulah Foley died in the home where she had spent most of her life. She had lived through much of the twentieth century. Though she had traveled widely throughout her life, she remained at heart an Estill Countian. And though she met many people and had many acquaintances in distant places, she was essentially a private person who enjoyed and loved her close friends and the members of her family. Beulah would probably question the whole idea of being given an award for just living the kind of life she wanted to live. But she would also have been pleased and proud that so many friends remembered her and wanted to say ‘Thank You.”