Geneva Jackson
Geneva Jackson, 1777-1971 Kitchen, Clermont (Photo by Jeff Taylor/The Winchester Star)
In 2015, when she was 81 and Clermont was celebrating its annual Farm Day, along with the completion of a National Park Service grant to repair the farm’s 1823 slave quarter, Geneva Jackson was interviewed by the Winchester Star. Her connection was both to that building and to the kitchen building, which served from 1777 to 1971. At age 15, already known for her cooking, she was employed by Admiral and Mrs. John Beardall (Edith McCormick, one of four McCormick siblings to jointly inherit the farm) as the family cook at Clermont. She was fifteen, and after discussions with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Brown (Mr. Brown worked at a neighboring farm), it was agreed she would live and work at Clermont during her first three years of high school at the Johnson-Williams High Training School, Clarke County’s segregated high school.
Her employment agreement included room (in the former slave quarter), board, and wages. In the 2015 interview, she said: “I was making $7 a week. That was a big windfall for me.” In another interview, with the Encyclopedia Virginia, when asked if it was difficult, living all by herself in her room in the “cabin”, she said, “No, I loved it. I had a room all to myself.” She said about her eight siblings, four brothers and four sisters: “We all cooked. My mother was a good cook who didn’t depend on recipes.” She added about her employers, the Beardalls (Admiral Beardall was the Naval Aide to President Roosevelt at the beginning of WWII, and Superintendent of the Naval Academy during the War), that “they just ate regular food,” including things she was used to making like fried chicken, salmon cakes or beef stew. Breakfast might be eggs and toast with juice or coffee. The couple didn’t entertain at the farm, so Jackson didn’t have to whip up exotic dishes.
The job came to an end when the Beardalls spent more of their retirement in Florida. Although Jackson said she regretted the loss of income, which she used to purchase books, school supplies, and clothes, she kept busy, raising her three youngest siblings after her mother’s death, and then marrying and having five children of her own. Geneva Jackson has stayed busy, a winner of many baking prizes at the Clarke County and Virginia State fairs, catering, and holding a booth at the Berryville Farm Market. She has also become one of Clarke’s best-known volunteers. She was a founding member of the local Help With Housing, a friend and mentor to women at the Laurel Center for Women, and remembered the many nights when the phone would ring at 3:00 AM and she would drive to the Winchester Hospital to sit by the side of a rape victim, and later, accompany her to court. She was a volunteer for Blue Ridge Hospice, and her baking has helped many local non-profits, including her apple cake, which brought $1,400 at a fundraiser.
In the 2015 Star interview by reporter and friend Val Van Meter (on which this account is based), she said, “My life revolved around children and people.” At this writing in 2025, that is still true, and is recognized by the people in her community, who see her as a hero.
