Barbara Marsh to write Monongah column for Fairmont Times

Barbara Marsh, who was widowed by the Farmington #9 mine explosion a half-century ago, will begin writing a Monongah news column for the Fairmont Times on Monday, July 9. She lives in Monongah.



Barbara Marsh and Dennis Toler, married in 1965

I wrote Monongah news for the Times in the late 1940s/early 1950s during my Monongah High and WVU Journalism School days, a perfect springboard to my 43-year newspaper career as sportswriter, reporter and editor at the Williamson Daily News, Charleston Daily Mail, Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, St. Petersburg (Florida) Times and, for the final 26 years till my 1996 retirement, for the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal.

Barbara married Dennis Toler in 1965. They had three boys and a girl.

Her oldest son, Chad, was killed at age 19. Melissa is a hairdresser and lives downstate. Dennis is a contractor in Fairmont. The youngest is a Pastor in Deep Creek Lake Maryland. She has “20 magnificent grandchildren.”

She finds roughhousing with her grandchildren, at times, to be … well, rough. Particularly with her arthritis.

Barbara added:

“I've worked in radio, newspaper, drove an ambulance, was a bill collector, and was a Hospice Chaplain in Elkins, but always returned to my heart’s desire, In Home Health Care, especially working with hospice patients, and their families. I've done this work for 54 years. I hope that I'm still doing it until the day I pass.

“I've been in WV since I was a babe, although we did live in many cities. I've been a Monongah resident since 1964. I was just getting acquainted with Barbara Fleming Marsh through Facebook shortly before she passed.”

Barbara Fleming Marsh, Class of 1947, moved to Oceanside, California after her Monongah High graduation. Barbara grew up on Fleming Hill, which had several family homes above Booth’s Creek and the railroad trestle above the creek just off the West Fork River, as the daughter of Fred Douglas Fleming.

This will be Barbara’s second go-around as Times correspondent. “I wrote the column for them in the 80's, John. Wrote for the Round-up, Day Star Tribune and the Salem Sentinel. Have written all my life, but work has kept me very busy, so haven't written for a while.”