Beulah and The Case of the Barking Collies

On Wednesday 24 November 1915, Mary Ellen Yates the wife of John Wesley Lockhart gave birth to Beulah Pauline Lockhart in Wirt County, West Virginia. At this same time Pristina, a capital city in Kosovo fell to Bulgarian Forces. No, none of this is related. Just a world timeline stamp. 

In August of 1938 Beulah married Travis Ignatius Clarence Parsons II. She was 22, he was 37 and she was his second marriage. He brought a daughter named Nancy to the new family and together Beulah and Travis had 4 more children. They lived in Charleston, West Virginia for several years and later settled in Glen Morgan, Raleigh County, West Virginia. 

In the late 1950's Beulah and Travis started breeding Collies on their 17 acre farm. Travis was a having health problems and this was a project he could do at home to help supplement his income. It was in late October of 1959 that a neighbor complained the dogs barking gave her hives and sued Beulah and Travis. 17 November 1959 the trial was under way and made the front page of the local paper just below the fold, "Barking Collies Jury Impaneled". The entire jury was loaded on a bus and escorted to Glen Morgan to view the Collie farm before the trial started. The Plaintiff made a homemade recording of the barking which Beulah's attorney immediately had thrown out as it was not a documented professional certified recording and therefore could have been tampered with. Beulah's attorney had 17 witnesses lined up to testify regarding the noise levels alone. The plaintiff's attorney claims she has to be heavily sedated in order to sleep. On day 3 of the trial the Plaintiff leaves the courthouse before the trial resumes claiming she is too ill from the barking dogs. However it is brought up in court that she had been involved in a "scuffle" in the courthouse corridor with the daughter of a witness for the defense. Not to mention that the Plaintiff's daughter admitted publicly at the courthouse that her Mother had a "nervous" condition that was pre-existing. The jury decides for Beulah and on the afternoon of 19 November 1959 court is over. Let's ring the outside dinner bell over at the Plaintiff's home and get those dogs to barking!

In October 1961 Beulah's husband,  Travis dies. She marries again in 1962 to a man named Lawson Henry Reed and in May 1973 Beulah's divorce is final as she resumes her name as Beulah Lockhart Parsons.
At the age of 88 in June of 2002 Beulah passes.