Record, The (Troy, NY) - January 30, 2009
Deceased Name: Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt
STEPHENTOWN - Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt, 89, of Route 43, died on Sunday January 18.
Survivors include her daughter Joyce (Gordon Sr.) Shepard of West Stephentown; daughter-in-law Helen Mallard of Tampa, FL; grandchildren Deborah (Ron) Rousseau, Gordon (Darlene) Jr. and Stanley and Wayne (Olya) Shepard, John (Michelle), James (Suzanne) and Joseph (Kristy) Geerholt; stepgrandson Billy Mallard; 13 great-grandchildren; along with many nieces and nephews. She was the dear friend of Art Roberts. Bessie was predeceased by a son Alfred J. Geerholt Jr. and siblings Arthur Goodermote, Clara Jones, Blanche Jones, Irma Cave, Jessie Goodermote and Beatrice Hewitt.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. at the West Stephentown Baptist Church, 1672 NY Route 43, Stephentown, where Rev. Trygve Tomlinson will officiate. There will be no calling hours. Spring interment will take place in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Stephentown.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Stephentown Volunteer Fire Department.
For an online guest registry, please visit www.hall-higgins.com.

Times Union, The (Albany, NY) - January 29, 2009
Deceased Name: BESSIE GEERHOLT, MODEL OF INDEPENDENCE
STEPHENTOWN -- Bessie Geerholt was still wielding a chain saw and running a wood splitter well into her 80s.
She was an archetypal woodswoman as tough and flinty as the hillocks and hollows of this craggy Rensselaer County landscape.
She was sitting in a chair inside her modest farmhouse when her heart finally gave out on Jan. 18 at the age of 89. She had endured heart bypass surgeries, bouts with cancer and enough heartache to fell a weaker woman decades earlier.
Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt was 110 pounds of sinew spread tautly over a 5-foot-3 frame, shoulders as thick as a man's, and fingers as strong as vise grips.
She was a Dorothea Lange photograph sprung to life.
Her formal schooling ended after junior high school, but she had the kind of backwoods smarts and true grit they don't teach in school.
"When times got tough, she just leaned into her work a little harder and kept going," said the Rev. Trygve Tomlinson, pastor of the West Stephentown Baptist Church.
Motorists may have glimpsed Bessie scratching a hoe through the stubborn soil, where new stones rose to the surface each spring. She coaxed a cornucopia of tasty things from a 1-acre wooded lot along Route 43.
She sold a generous face cord of seasoned hardwood, made Grade A maple syrup, wound by hand her sought-after princess pine Christmas wreaths and raised prize tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers. Her Sunday suppers of chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy were legendary.
To those who knew her, Bessie's life mattered in the simple, authentic way of country life rarely celebrated in our digital age. She used a rotary phone and never flew on a plane, but her heart seemed as wide as the world.
"She was the neighbor everybody wanted," said Dan Lorber, who moved into an 1840 farmhouse near Bessie's in 1987 and opened Down in Denver Books with his wife, Dale Newman, a nurse practitioner.
Bessie brought the couple canned vegetables, syrup, wreaths and other gifts. They became close friends. Lorber hired Bessie to work part time at the bookstore in 1988, the year Bessie's husband of 50 years, Alfred, died.
Bessie buried her 24-year-old son, Alfred Jr., in 1969 after he died in a car accident.
The mother of two, grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of 13 also ran a restaurant, sold shoes and worked two decades at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, cleaning up the labor and delivery rooms and mixing infant formula.
"Good, hard work was her secret," said her daughter, Joyce Shepard, of West Stephentown.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in the West Stephentown Baptist Church, 1672 Route 43, Stephentown.
Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Times Union, The (Albany, NY) - January 29, 2009
Deceased Name: Geerholt, Bessie B.
STEPHENTOWN Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt, 89, of Route 43, died on Sunday, January 18, 2009. Survivors include her daughter, Joyce (Gordon Sr.) Shepard of West Stephentown; a daughter-in-law, Helen Mallard of Tampa, Fla.; grandchildren, Deborah (Ron) Rousseau, Gordon (Darlene) Jr., Stanley and Wayne (Olya) Shepard, John (Michelle), James (Suzanne) and Joseph (Kristy) Geerholt; step-grandson, Billy Mallard; 13 great-grand-children; along with many nieces and nephews. She was the dear friend of Art Roberts. Bessie was predeceased by a son, Alfred J. Geerholt Jr.; and siblings, Arthur Goodermote, Clara Jones, Blanche Jones, Irma Cave, Jessie Goodermote and Beatrice Hewitt. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 31 at 2 p.m. in the West Stephentown Baptist Church, 1672 NY Route 43, Stephentown, where Rev. Trygve Tomlinson will officiate. There will be no calling hours. Spring interment will take place in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Stephentown. Memorial contributions may be made to the Stephentown Volunteer Fire Department. For an online guest registry, please visit www.hall-higgins.com

Record, The (Troy, NY) - January 20, 2009
Deceased Name: Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt
STEPHENTOWN - Bessie Belle Goodermote Geerholt, 89, of Route 43, died on Sunday at her residence after being stricken.
Born in Berlin on April 27, 1919, she was the daughter of the late Charles and Wealthy Wescott Goodermote. She was the loving wife of the late Alfred J. Geerholt Sr. who died on February 2, 1988. They were married in Lebanon Springs on April 17, 1937.
A lifelong resident of the area, Bessie attended the Dutch Reformed Church of Berlin and the Stephentown Center Baptist Church.
She was a homemaker in her earlier years before working in sales at Montgomery Ward in Menands along with working at the Nancy Shoe Co. in Hoosick Falls. She was a nurse's aide in the labor and delivery nursery at Samaritan Hospital for 20 years, retiring in 1981. For a few years she operated Mayer's Restaurant in Stephentown.
Bessie enjoyed gardening and working the wood business with her late husband.
Survivors include her daughter Joyce (Gordon Sr.) Shepard of West Stephentown; a daughter-in-law, Helen Mallard of Tampa, FL; grandchildren Deborah (Ron) Rousseau, Gordon (Darlene) Jr., Stanley and Wayne (Olya) Shepard, John (Michelle), James (Suzanne) and Joseph (Kristy) Geerholt; stepgrandson Billy Mallard; 13 great-grandchildren; along with many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by a son, Alfred J. Geerholt Jr.; and siblings Arthur Goodermote, Clara Jones, Blanche Jones, Irma Cave, Jessie Goodermote and Beatrice Hewitt.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. in the West Stephentown Baptist Church, 1672 NY Route 43, Stephentown, where Rev. Trygve Tomlinson will officiate. There will be no calling hours. Spring interment will take place in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Stephentown.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Stephentown Volunteer Fire Department.
For an online guest registry, please visit www.hall-higgins.com.