March is Women's History Month
In Honor of Women’s History Month In addition to honoring those women who have changed the world, I think it is important to honor those women who have been so important in our individual lives. I present to you Rachel Louise Rotthouse, who married John Coleman Webster, Jr., my grandmother. Born in 1908, Rachel grew up on Cherrywood Farm located just off Concord Pike, in the area now known as Blue Rock Manor. Her grandparents immigrated from Germany, and her father was the first born in the United States in 1879. Rachel attended the one-room, multi-grade school on Concord Pike, and learned all about farming. She learned how to make cheese and sausage, how to plant and harvest, how to preserve the harvest for the long winter months. She always loved reading and learning, and Rachel became the teacher in that one-room school. Rachel caught the eye of a young farmer, John Webster, and he talked her into marrying him in 1924. She moved into the large farmhouse with his pa...