Bess and Lester Kelley were long time musicians on the Ozark Folk Center stage.
This Ozark Folk Center 50th Anniversary Legacy Photo is in memory of Lester and Bess Kelley.
Fondly, Dickie and Judy Bishop
Both natives of the eastern Tennessee mountains, Lester and Bessie Hart Kelley, with no children to care for, traveled a lot. In the 1970s, they found Mountain View, Arkansas. It was a place that suited them well. In 1981, after Lester retired from Tennessee-Carolina Transportation, they moved to a farm they had bought alongside Highway 9. They built a home there and started attending shows at the Ozark Folk Center. Lester said they thought they had landed in a “little piece of heaven.”
Bess remarked during an interview several years ago that the OFC used to be open every night, with the auditorium usually full. Always thrifty, Bess added, “Admission was cheaper then. I think our first season ticket cost five dollars.” Lester said of the Folk Center then, “It was a boon to the economy of this area when it started. People who got by with almost nothing suddenly had a little money to spend because they could play music or square dance or do something like make syrup or soap or baskets. Things they enjoyed doing anyway. The Folk Center helped a lot of Stone County people.”
Lester lost his mother and Bess, her father, when they were each nine years old. Lester’s mother’s brother, his Uncle Celus Wallen, took a special interest in his late sister’s children. Lester thought he “picked up” playing the banjo by watching his Uncle Cel play. After he moved to Mountain View, Lester was extra thankful for that musical knowledge and Uncle Cel's old banjo was one of Lester’s prized possessions.
By 1984, Bess and Lester were performing on the stage and outdoors at the Ozark Folk Center, first as dulcimer players. Later, Bess played the guitar, which she taught herself to play, and Lester played his banjo. Bess sang, specializing in Carter Family songs. They played with legendary Stone County fiddler, Sam Younger, and with well-known musicians Robert and Mary Gillihan and Dave Smith. They were also hired as OFC square dancers. They later played with several groups, notably Rocky Bayou, with whom they cut an album. Bess later performed with the ladies’ quartet, Mother’s Cabin.
Bess’s father had died in 1940. She moved with her mother and two little sisters to her maternal grandparents’ farm home. Bess said her mother’s sister, her Aunt Ella, was an artist. Ella influenced Bess to become interested in painting. The only art lessons Bess ever had were from a teacher on public television, but she learned well, specializing in water color. She made her own mats and did her own framing. She sold hundreds of paintings at the Ozark Folk Center Gift Shop. She laughed and said that her best seller was simply a rock with a small picture and the words, “Stone County’s Number One Product” painted on it.
Even after Lester stopped performing, he and Bess were there in their back row, left side, seats for every show. Bess continued performing with “Bess Kelley and Friends”. Lester died in January of 2017, and Bess, the next January. Both were 86. Bess performed on the Ozark Folk Center stage for the last time less than three months before her death. The Folk Center, the focus of her life for many years, had kept her going.
Entry by Judy Bishop.
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