By Julie Schlesselman, Local History & Genealogy Department Manager, FCPLD
This article ran in the December 27, 2023, edition of the Brookville American and is available in the book Forgotten Franklin County volume 5.
Having been published in all of those renditions, in addition to scholarly publications and written about in newspaper articles – with a repertoire like that – you wouldn’t think the Beesleys would be included in a column about forgotten Franklin County….but the couple who married late in life, had no children, and focused primarily on their work…became just that, forgotten.
Never heard of them? Me neither.
Outside of Franklin County, however, Adele and Lloyd Beesley were recognized across the United States’ Midwest as naturalists extraordinaire – and neither one had a lick of professional training as such. Their expertise came from years of personal study and simply a passion for nature. They lived just outside of the town of Cedar Grove on English Hill – 6313 English Hill Road to be exact, according to Adele’s obituary.
A few years back when Joey Sizemore was working at the library he took interest in some of our local history. Our library Director, Susan Knight suggested he do a little research regarding this unique Franklin County couple. I was intrigued by Susan’s suggestion and with some of the facts Joey was able to dig up.
So to introduce you to this forgotten Franklin County naturalist duo, this narrative is a combined effort between some of what Susan knew about the Beesleys, what Joey found, and what I discovered. For such an interesting and professionally well-known couple, their combined biography is unfortunately very short.
I am sure many readers will recall the Beesleys as soon as they start to read this article. Lloyd died at the age of 66 at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati in April 1977. Adele died at her residence 24 years later in January 2002. Her obituary in the Richmond Palladium-Item and the Brookville newspapers said she was a “homemaker.” Oddly, it said nothing at all about her professional or botanical accomplishments.
The Beesley’s English Hill farm was designated as a Hoosier Homestead since the family had lived there for over 100 years. Lloyd and Adele also owned a parcel of land off Possum Hollow Road.
Nature clubs from all across the tristate area made trips to the Beesley’s land. I even heard that a few school children in need of help on nature projects and plant identifications often knocked on the Beesley’s door in search of assistance.
The Beesleys were experts on native wildlife and plants and took thousands of photographs of both. They never propagated wildflowers – they just went in search of them – to discover their growing habits and document locations of where they were found naturally. Lloyd and Adele not only searched on their property but hiked woods all over Franklin County, as well as Indiana state parks and other Midwest parks and preserves in search of illusive plants and wildlife.
The Beesley’s life stories were primarily documented in only three items, two newspaper articles that appeared in the Williamsport Grit and a short entry in the book Whitewater Township: The Stories We Have To Tell – and most of that came from a 1965 Cincinnati newspaper article. If you are not familiar with the Williamsport Grit, Wikipedia gives an extensive history about the paper, the gist being it was “a weekly newspaper, popular in the rural U.S. during much of the 20th century. It carried the subtitle America’s Greatest Family Newspaper.”
In an article written by Bill Thomas called Wildflower Farmer, which appeared in the Williamsport Grit of August 21, 1966, he mentions the Beesleys had a virtually untouched, almost pristine 20-acre site on the back side of their farm.
Thomas said, “The timber there is virgin, and the plant life is lush and plentiful. Moss of many colors grows abundantly on trees and fallen logs. And wildflowers grow all over the place, many of them so minute the average person might pass them by unnoticed.”
In this article the Beesleys told Thomas that Butler University and Earlham College were both interested in their wildflower photographs and possibly putting them into a book. Here too, Lloyd explains the difficulty in photographing wildflowers and the patience one must possess.
According to Thomas, he implied the Beesleys were naturalists by passion, but farmers by trade. They raised chickens, tobacco, and truck garden crops, which they sold at a summer roadside stand on U.S. Route 52 near Cedar Grove.
The most biographical information found to date regarding Lloyd came from Thomas’s 1966 Grit interview. In part, some of the details are as follows: “In 1936, he [Lloyd] had left his Indiana home to go to Florida and play baseball with the Boston Red Sox. And he played with them in their training sessions, without the benefit of being assigned to a contract.”
“That same spring, Charlie Dresden, then manager of the Cincinnati Redlegs, approached him to try out for that team. He had a hot right arm and a knuckle ball that impressed a lot of pros, including Dresden.”
“Lloyd was just about to try out for the Reds when his father became seriously ill. His mother, now aged, was nearly blind and couldn’t see well enough to care for herself or Lloyd’s father.”
“So, being one of two children, he returned home, leaving behind his chances for the big time in baseball.” Lloyd told Thomas, “I really am not sorry I returned home. But it is interesting to think what might have happened to my personal life had I signed on with the Reds.”
Thomas’s article continued on and told how Lloyd and Adele met. Lloyd told Thomas “…at the age of nine he was wandering through the woodlot looking for wildflowers and met a girl not much younger than he, who, incidentally, was picking wildflowers. She lived nearby on an adjoining farm.”
“The story goes that Lloyd fell in love with this girl. Through the years, their childhood romance blossomed…..”
“But Lloyd’s dedication and responsibility to his parents thwarted the development of the romance to the point of marriage. For years and years, it continued. And Lloyd as might be expected, found himself growing older and older.”
“Forty years after that first meeting in the woods, Lloyd Beesley and Adele Harrison finally were married.” This was in 1963.
Fourteen years after Thomas’ article, the Williamsport Sunday Grit National Edition of February 3, 1980 ran a story primarily focusing on Adele. At the time, she was one “of the Midwest’s foremost authorities on plant life – with wildflowers her specialty.” It said, “Adele’s expertise, however is not the product of college study or exhaustive research in book. Instead, she learned, as a child, from the fields, and woods on her parents’ farm.”
This 1980 Grit story was written by Judy Keene and captured additional relevant biographical information about the Beesleys.
Adele told Keene, “During the Depression there was nothing much else to do, so we would go out and explore. I was always curious about the things we found and would want to know their names.”
Keene said, “As if by fate, she [Adele] married a former schoolmate, Lloyd Beesley, who became an avid photographer of animal and plant life. Both abounded on their 160-acre farm.”
“While Lloyd’s camera caught pictures of mallards and skunks, rabbits and songbirds, Adele spotted many new kinds of wild flowers, which Lloyd soon started to photograph.”
Adele said, “We collected the flowers through pictures.” They never picked a flower or dug up a plant. In all, Adele estimated they found more than 500 species in Indiana – including quite a few the experts said didn’t grow here. However, Lloyd’s collection of slides proved differently, and the Beesleys became regarded by botanists far and wide as authorities on plants in particular. In 1964 they were invited to lecture at the Indiana Academy of Science.
The Beesleys had several pictures published in Rickett’s Wildflowers of the United States – a multi volume work published through the New York botanical Gardens.
After Adele’s husband died, she worked with Bill Thomas, a well-known nature photographer. She helped him identify plants in his many books and she assisted other photo-journalists in identifying mushrooms, flowers and lichens.
This 1980 article was the last published article that include biographical information about the Beesleys. At the time it said, “Although, she is 65, she has given no thought to retiring from her farm work…..she raises cows and cultivates tobacco.”
At this time, Adele was interested in sharing the Beesley’s thousands of slides in a book about Indiana wildflowers. Adele said, “The people at Indiana University in Bloomington were interested, but said they didn’t have the money that an all-color book would require.”
Do you remember the Beesley’s talks? They spoke to classes locally and in the Cincinnati public schools, and to historical societies, and nature societies throughout the state. Or maybe you remember the Beesleys for spearheading the 1960s search for the missing farmhand John Kombach. Long story short, in the 1920s, Kombach, a local hired hand for many farmers in the area was last known to be digging a well with his brother-in-law. Shortly thereafter he went missing – did John walk away from his family and work – was he killed – did he die from an accident? No one knows. But the Beesleys thought he was missing because of foul play and lay at the bottom of an old well out back of a two-room log cabin on Possum Hollow Road where Kombach stayed. Lloyd Beesley got a group together about 45 years after John turned up missing to start digging the old well and property – but with no luck. Kombach’s body was never found. The search event even made the August 22, 1965 Cincinnati Enquirer.
Lloyd was also proficient with the dowsing rods. He had been witching wells for years and was invited to the Levi Coffin house in Fountain City, Indiana in September 1968 to see if he could “witch for the underground tunnel, which is said to have led from the basement of the house to either the barn of the bank of the river behind the building.”
Lloyd’s photography was not confined to wildflowers but included animals. One image in particular made the cover of an Esther Kellner book. According to a May 7, 1966 Indianapolis Star article, Lloyd had “photographed a small squirrel trying to get a walnut out of a doll’s sock he had placed it in.” Lloyd’s friend, Kellner, liked the photo so much that it was used for the cover of Out of the Woods, which was published in 1964 by Doubleday.
In a November 11, 1968 Pallidum-Item story by Mary Agnes Starr, she said since bulldozers and concrete are rapidly changing the face of Indiana, the Beesley’s main goal was to capture and preserve on film, the original natural beauty of the hills, woods and streams found and seen by those who settled Indiana. “As population increases, with the ever-growing need for more housing, highways and schools, civilization tramples out secluded places and wildlife becomes extinct.”
Starr claimed, “Their film is recognized by teachers, nature writers and scientists as one of Indiana’s finest collections.”
The only online finding aid I discovered for any of the Beesley’s extensive collection of slides and photos is for the Indiana State Library – in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division. The collection is called “Indiana orchid slides,” and came from Lloyd and Adele Beesley in 1971. This image collection is very small and includes a letter from the Beesleys and nine slides of orchids they found throughout the state of Indiana.
So where did the Beesley’s extensive fine collection go – their photographs, slides, field notes, manuscripts, etc.? I am hoping you can tell me.
If you remember anything about Lloyd or Adele or have copies of any of their work or photographs, please contact me or Susan Knight at the Brookville Library.
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