LOOKING FOR LOVE - Eighty Five Years Ago Rocksdale Girls Put Note In Bottle, Floats Down The River

(02/14/2026)

By Bob Weaver 2010 In 1939 a 18-year-old Rocksdale girl put a note in a bottle, seeking to find a husband. She and her cousin placed notes in the bottle, and put the bottle in the West Fork of the Little Kanawha in front of their house just above Rocksdale. Unfortunately, its trip down the river went a short distance, ten miles or so, missing the opportunity of a float down the Ohio and the Mississippi. Unfortunately their pleas for male companionship didn't work, the bottle was discovered 75 years later and opened by a Wirt County couple, Dennis and Robin Schrader, who were scavenging along the river at Creston. The couple opened the bottle to discover two handwritten notes, still preserved. Susie Tanner, daughter of life-long Rocksdale resident James Albert Tanner (1887-1973), and her 14-year-old cousin, Edith Roach, daughter of Daniel Roach, wrote these brief notes: Susie Tanner's Note: "I have brown hair and brown eyes. I am about five feet four inches tall. I am dark complected and weigh 115 pound. I am 18 years old and want to get married. When you find this send me your picture and I will send you mine...Please write." Edith Roach's Note: I am 5 feet tall, I have brown eyes and brown hair. I weigh 115 pounds. I am dark complected. I am 14 years old." Both girls married and are now deceased. Their brother and cousin, Albert Gale Tanner, well known for his work with Grantsville VFW Post 5959 passed away in 2010.

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