Robert Flint Sr.

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Biography

Retirement Article by Skip Johnson, Charleston, WV Sunday Gazette Mail, August 3, 1986

Retiring ASCS Agent Sees Second Farm Crisis

The more things change, Bob Flint has decided, the more they stay the same.

Flint, who retired Friday after 45 years with the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service in Kanawha County, came here with his family 60 years ago to escape farming hard times in the Midwest. Today, after all these years, the hard times are back in the Midwest breadbasket, with many farmers going bankrupt.

"The Depression and the Dust Bowl caught us," said Flint of his family's long-ago departure from a Nebraska farm. "We came to West Virginia so my mom could teach." She taught in one-and two-room schools in Pleasants and Kanawha counties. His father was a schoolteacher and farmer.

They lived four years in a coal camp on Middle Fork of Blue Creek, and Flint recalls riding the New York Central passenger train to school at Quick and Elkview. "We had the 50th reunion of my high school class in 1984," he said, "and one of the things we talked about was riding that train."

The Flint family lived for a year in one room of the school where his mother taught on Blue Creek. After graduating from Elkview, Flint attended West Virginia University for one year, then did some farming, sold vacuum cleaners and worked in 4-H for the late Pat McGovern, one-time state director of veterans' affairs and Kanawha County Sheriff.

Although Kanawha County was never the nation's breadbasket, Flint has nonetheless seen it lose much of the agriculture it once had. When he joined ASCS in 1940, there were 50 or more dairies in Kanawha County, but now only one remains. "Farming didn't look so good to the young people coming back from World War II," he said.

The No. 1 agricultural crop in the county at present is beef cattle. "There are more than people may think," said Flint. "You see them if you get off the main highways."

But everybody in agriculture, Flint included, insists there's no money to be made in small cattle operations. So why do they continue to raise cattle? "For one thing," Flint answered "cattle help keep the brush down. But mostly, it's a labor of love. I don't like to use the word hobby, but that's what it is. Financially, they'll be lucky to break even over a 10-year period."

Flint's tenure with ASCS dates back so far he recalls that the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture at the time he joined ASCS was Henry Wallace, who later ran for president against Harry Truman and Thomas E. Dewey as a Progressive. He lost, as did Dewey.

Flint's ASCS career wasn't without interruption. In the 1940s he left for 18 months to manage the 4-H fairgrounds, camp and pool at Dunbar. "Everybody should leave a job once," he said, "so they'll appreciate it more when they come back."

His wife, Anna, took over his ASCS job when he left. When she became pregnant, he moved back into his old job, replacing Anna.

The Flints live at Quick. They have two children, Bob II, a student at Marshall University, and Susan Elmore of Frame, an electronics technician for the National Weather Service at Yeager Airport.

Flint has no special plans for retirement. "I'll find something to get into," he said. "Maybe some kind of charity work."

Note: He suffered from respiratory illness which limited his mobility, and later died from emphysema March 6, 1991.

Sources

• Year: 1920; Census Place: North Loup, Valley, Nebraska; Roll: T625_1002; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 258; Image: .

• Year: 1930; Census Place: Elk, Kanawha, West Virginia; Roll: 2538; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 61; Image: 425.0.

• "West Virginia Marriages, 1780-1970," Robert Edward Flint and Anna Marie Wilson, 1947; citing Kanawha, , county clerks, West Virginia; FHL microfilm 521,724.

• "United States Social Security Death Index," Robert E Flint, 06 Mar 1991; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

• "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2S3-PZ4H : 14 September 2023), Robert Edward Flint, ; Burial, South Charleston, Kanawha, West Virginia, United States of America, Sunset Memorial Park; citing record ID 157374480, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

• Charleston, WV Sunday Gazette Mail, August 3, 1986