David W. C. Bearr

David Bearr is known to readers of Fluvanna History as the author since 1978 of a dozen manuscripts for this publication of the Fluvanna Historical Society. He wrote all but one chapter for Historic Fluvanna in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In addition to the Society, he has published with Historic Fincastle, Roanoke’s Historical Society of Western Virginia, the Virginia Conference Historical Society (United Methodist), and the College Archives of Blackstone including photography for its Jamestown 2007 legacy postcard series.

He has written about the people who forged ahead and established a landmark public high school in Fluvanna County, Virginia; about an African-American journalist and educator who supervised historic black Methodist colleges from Maryland to Texas; about Walter Reed’s less famous brother who lost a hand at the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. He wrote about the life of the 19^th century Washington and Lee UniversityUnited States. He wrote the story of the struggles of the person who became in 1895 the first graduate of the first public city high school in Roanoke. He wrote about the main characters in the Ante-Bellum murder in Fincastle of a Freeman, a successful businessman and church leader, by another freeman.  professor who was the first journalism professor in the

When a college administrator he was in charge of institutional publications and has written articles and a column for professional counseling media.  Volunteer service includes recognition from the American Red Cross for his research with the Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center.

The Virginia native, who now lives in Maryland, is of Fluvanna stock – a third great-grandson of Walker and Sarah Timberlake and a Mountain View descendant through the line of Abram, Jr. and Mary Shepherd.

An Army Brat, who grew up on both coasts and a number of states in-between, always answered the proverbial question “Where are you from?” with Virginia – his birthplace and first home. Even after moving away at age 9, every summer was spent in the Old Dominion, and here he started to listen to the stories of time and place overheard during multigenerational front porch gatherings. His knowledge of this place grew as his Virginia relations and their friends routinely spoke in three generations”!

He started writing down some of these stories with the encouragement of a fifth grade school teacher in Atlanta – the woman was a retired journalism professor from Oklahoma.  The next summer in Fincastle, Virginia, the town librarian helped him create displays of his Virginia photography (almost exclusively historical highway markers) and invited the town to a couple of receptions where David shared “his historical research” including notes on his beloved F-l-u-v-a-n-n-i-a. Yes, that’s how he typed it on the program and on a poster with pictures of the Fluvanna County Court House and Mountain View.   

He was distracted over the years, but a double major at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in history and psychology with required senior papers in each – he wrote on Fluvanna’s first high school for his history requirement connecting it to his then impression of Jefferson’s desire to educate the masses.

By the 1970s he was living in Maryland and was invited by Minnie Lee McGehee, then Editor of the Fluvanna Historical Society publications, to pursue seriously his interest in the Old State of Flu by doing some serious research and possibly writing a manuscript and submitting it for publication. He had the interest and felt he could handle it. He had been editor of the student newspaper for two years during his undergraduate experience and even got paid for it! Now colleagues sought his review of their copy, and college presidents had him perfect their correspondence.

About 1975 he submitted his first manuscript to Minnie Lee after considerable editing and numerous rewrites.  He realized that he had been mighty demanding of himself, but he was very pleased with the results. In a few weeks he heard from Minnie Lee: “David, it is absolutely wonderful! I think it’s the best first draft I’ve ever read.”

He learned a lot about writing from Minnie Lee before that first manuscript ever saw the printing press. And later, it was not any degree that landed him a college-level position writing annual reports, program profiles, and the catalog  -- it was what he learned from Minnie Lee McGehee – someone he calls, “my wonderful teacher and mentor, and along the way, a friend!”

David is a Counselor Educator at John Hopkins University and chairs the Fluvanna Historical Society’s Publications Committee.