Remembering Otmer

Otmer Riley was the son of a respected family in Ripley, West Virginia. His father was County Clerk at one time and his mother was one of the Armstrong family, builders of the first brick house in town that is still the oldest house in town. They had seven children; only three survived their parents. Two died in infancy, and the third, their beloved oldest daughter, died in childbirth. Otmer was the light of their lives, a happy, creative young man who participated in plays and musicals, who loved to sing and who had a wide circle of friends across the state.

Otmer tried out many careers in his life and was more or less successful at some of them. He was quite a ladies man too—he carried letters and pictures of quite a few young women in his wallet. Pictures show him to be a short, thin man with soulful eyes and quite well dressed.

Otmer kept a detailed scrapbook of his life, and that scrapbook came to light a few years ago when some ladies from North Carolina found it in a dumpster at a nursing hone and carried it back to Ripley. Otmer's sister Willa had no descendants and left the scrapbook to her good friend. The friend also had no descendants so her belongings were tossed when she died. How lucky these two ladies who worked at the nursing home heard about the scrapbook and retrieved it. The scrapbook is now housed in the Jackson County Library and is a fascinating look back at the times in which Otmer lived.

Otmer's home on North Street.
 It is no longer standing.

There is one aspect of Otmer’s life that isn’t shown in the happy photos and letters of the scrapbook, however. He suffered from an illness that wasn’t apparent to most people who knew him. Otmer suffered from periodic bouts of depression and sometimes paranoia. He got a good job with a bank in West Union, WV, but left after a month, citing health reasons. He suffered from frequent delusions that someone wanted to kill him. In February, Otmer left the hospital in Parkersburg where he had been receiving treatment and got on the train, apparently planning to return home. As the train passed through Millwood he suffered an attack of paranoia—he was sure someone on the train was out to kill him and he jumped from the moving train. He began running along the tracks, shedding his coat in his haste. When he saw two people walking towards him (they were just waiting for the train to stop), he turned and ran down the bank and disappeared. When his body was found his head and feet were in the waters of Mill Creek, his body resting on a large block of ice. His funeral was held at the church beside his boyhood home, and he is buried in the Pine Hill cemetery in Ripley.

His story might have been lost in time had it not been for the discovery of the scrapbook, which presents a vivid picture of Otmer, making his death all the more poignant. Each year the ladies who discovered the scrapbook send flowers for his grave on the anniversary of his birthday. I joined members of the local historical society to place the flowers on his grave yesterday.

A young man gone, but still remembered. Rest in peace, Otmer.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.