Page 25 - May1997

Mav 1997 NATIONAL BUTTON BULLETIN 91

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1 904- 1985
by John A. Mahey
Sons often regard their mothers as remarkable women, so, surely, I am not alone
in remembering my mother, Bernyce Mahey, was among the most extraordinary
figures in ny life. Nearly all her ancestors, so far as I can determine, were farmers
with scant education. She and an elder brother were the hrst in their family to
graduate from college. She taught elementary school for several years before
marrying, and instilled in her sons a stlong respect for education and intellectual
pursuits. She loved music, was a voracious reader in many fields and worked at
least one crossword ptzzle each day as long as I can remember. She sewed and
knitted, made hooked rugs, cooked marvelous meals, and kept a spotless house
while nearly always working at a full time job. She loved to go on camping trips, to
hike, to swir-t-t, to garden and to travel. She was an inveterate letter writer,
corresponding with family and friends far and wide. She was the family genealogist
and as she grew older became the one who insured that widely scattefed cousins,
nieces and nephews kept in touch with one another. Her birthday and anniversary
book had to be seen to be believed. She was modest in dress and deportment, had
little tolerance for "small talk," and enjoyed a sense of humor that on more than
one occasion. served to overcome serious setbacks and disappointments. She met
each day as a new adventure and seldom if ever evidenced depression. Infinitely
adaptable, she told me in the last year of her life that she moved more than thirty
times in her life, living in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Connecticut,
California, Maryland, Florida, New York, and Texas.
Bernyce was bom on a farm near Mena, Arkansas in 1904, the fourth of eight
children of Franklin and Lenora Holder. A few years later the family homesteaded
in Adair County, Oklahoma, remaining there until Lenora died in 7912' Bernyce
and the younger children were later placed in foster homes in Russellville,
Arkansas, where Bernyce graduated from high school, attended college and taught
school until her marriage in 1927 to Manasseh A. Mahey, a salesman and
evangelistic song leader from Clarion, Pennsylvania. The young couple settled in
Clarion, rearing two sons, E. Arnold Mahey and John A. Mahey' both of whom
now live in Harrisburg, PA. She and my father divorced in 1955.
In 1950 Bernyce took a position as a social worker with the Pennsylvania
Department of Public Welfare, first in Clarion and later in Kittanning, PA. It was rn
the early 1950s that she began collecting buttons. It happened by chance when one
of her clients, an elderly welfare recipient, gave her an old button string. At first
she didn't quite know what she had, but after doing a bit ofreading at the public
library she soon realized the significance of what she had been given, and soon
began investigating the hobby ofbutton collecting. Over the next year or two she