Barbara Josephine “Josie” Musser was born on August 12, 1882 in Virginia to Martin Musser and Sarah “Sallie” Letitia Virginia Tobler. She married Tobius Sullens Robertson. They had a son, John Ray, on November 1, 1907 in Bristol, West Virginia. The family was listed on the 1910 Federal Census living in Black Lick, Wythe, Virginia. Sometime in the next decade, they relocated to Nickerson, Dodge, Nebraska (their residence on the 1920 Federal Census). Tobius died of tuberculosis on December 18th of that year.
Barbara’s Father, Martin Musser
Jossie was forced to leave John “Ray” with cousins while she went to work as a single mother. She eventually remarried to Roscoe Briard around 1924, and the small family relocated from Norfolk, Nebraska to Fremont, Nebraska. Her granddaughter LaRae remembers her as a sweet woman who spoiled her son (Ray). She vividly remembers Jossie picking fresh dandelions in the spring to make salads.
Barbara Josephine Musser With Second Husband Roscoe Briard
“She had a white spitz dog named Tiny. Her husband Roscoe was clean and quiet. When I was little, Grandma Briard lived about five blocks from us in Fremont. She stayed in Freemont when we moved to East Grand Forks, and she died he year after we moved. She had really black silky shiny hair, and she would let me comb it by the hour.
My Grandma Briard didn’t have running water when I first met her, and they would wash dishes in a dishpan and throw the water on her garden, and once she threw out her wedding ring with the dishwater. She could never find it, but years later it showed up in her garden.
She was very quiet and sweet. She and her husband Roscoe had a great big white spitz dog named Tiny, and Tiny had puppies when she was like 12 years old and she would snap and bite. Times were really hard then [during the 30’s] and Roscoe would buy 25 cents worth of minced ham for that dog, and I loved minced ham and didn’t have as good of food as the dog. Tiny lived to be like 20 — really old. I remember once when I had a cold she gave me a teaspoon of sugar soaked with whiskey.
Barbara Josephine Musser Robertson Briard With LaRoi and LaRae
Roscoe was a lot younger than my grandma and was 36 when she was 51 … and when I was born at home, my grandma was pregnant in the hospital with a pregnancy in her Fallopian tube. I was a premie, and my dad took me up to see her in a shoebox. She lived, and the pregnancy didn’t last. As a result, she had blot clots that went through her system and she was never well. The woman who took care of her was so skinny and ate so much that I remember Grandma saying she must have had a tapeworm. I always had nightmares that I had a tapeworm and I would hold something in front of my mouth to try to catch the tapework when it jumped out.”
Jossie would struggle with heart issues resulting from the ectopic pregnancy and subsequent blood clots for the next several years. She eventually succumbed to heart problems and died on January 3, 1939 in Fremont, Dodge, Nebraska, at the age of 55. She was buried at Memorial Cemetery in Fremont, Dodge, Nebraska.
