Bethany Veney - After Aunt Betty's Story

After Aunt Betty's Story

Though Aunt Betty's Story ends, she lived another another twenty-six years beyond the conclusion of the autobiography.

At the opening of the Civil War, G.J. Adams told Bethany that “she was at liberty to go wherever she pleased.” Veney then went to Worcester, Massachusetts, and one of the first things she recalled doing was making gruel and carrying it to the sick Union soldiers in Brookfield. During this time, she also worked as a laundress and earned extra money by going door to door and selling a bluing solution (made to brighten clothing). She apparently had a thriving business in selling this solution to housewives of her neighborhood and “if one of her customers moved to another part of Worcester it was her custom to carry the bluing to them.”

After the Civil War, Aunt Betty returned to Virginia several times and brought sixteen relatives to Worcester with her, including her daughter Charlotte, who had married Aaron Jackson since Bethany's departure from Page County.

At 1 p.m. on November 16, 1916, Bethany Veney, at the age of 103 years, died at the home of her daughter, Charlotte, at 33 Winfield Street in Worcester. It was said that she “retained her faculties, except her eyesight, in a wonderful manner. Her memory was keen, not in the manner of old persons, in remembering dates of long ago, but she kept herself posted on the topics of interest of today and although she could not read because of her eyesight in later years, she kept posted by asking questions.”

Bethany’s daughter, Charlotte, died on February 14, 1921, at a home that she had moved to since the death of her mother, at 89 Mayfield Street in Worcester. She was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery near her mother.

On July 12, 2003, the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, signed a proclamation honoring Bethany Veney and her life by declaring the day “Bethany Veney Day in Worcester, Massachusetts.”