Sescoe Curry Isaacs (1897-1967)

Portrait from the West Virginia State Blue Book, 1948.

  The Strangest Names In American Political History begins its month-long stay in West Virginia for a look at the lives of several oddly named men who were elected to public office in the Mountain State. The first of these profiles takes us to Lincoln County and Sescoe Curry Isaacs, a World War I veteran, road contractor, and real estate dealer who served one term in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Born on May 1, 1897, in Sheridan, West Virginia, Sescoe Curry Isaacs was the son of  Greeley Horace and Annie Victoria (Midkiff) Isaacs. 

  Isaacs' early education occurred in both "public and private normal schools" in his home state and is mentioned as having been a veteran of the First World War. Despite the mention of his service in the West Virginia Blue Book (as well as his 1967 Charleston Gazette obituary) no information could be located on the duration of his service or his area of deployment.

  Sescoe C. Isaacs married on Christmas Day 1920 to Mae Damron (1901-1979). The couple were wed for over forty years and had several children, including Ivan Cecil (1920-1993), Virginia Marie (1922-1935), Sescoe Curry Jr. (1926-2000), Betty Jo (1931-2009), Don Chafin (1932-1989), Alma Mae (1934-2011), Anna Margaret (1935-2015), and Harold Greeley (born 1938). A self-employed road contractor prior to his service in state government, Sescoe Isaacs was also an oil and gas well driller, being affiliated with the Ray Gas Co. He is also mentioned as having been a real estate agent in his brief West Virginia Blue Book biography, being "engaged in buying, building, and selling homes." 

  Isaacs entered the political life of his state in November 1948 when he won election to the West Virginia House of Delegates from Lincoln County, besting Republican nominee B.R. Osborne by a vote of 4,473 to 4, 108. Serving during the 1949-51 session, little is known of Isaac's term or his life after leaving office, excepting notice of his being a member of the Welcome Home Baptist Church in Pleasant View, West Virginia.

   Sescoe C. Isaacs died at a hospital in Huntington, West Virginia on April 11, 1967, at age 69. He was survived by his wife Mae and several of his children and was later interred at the Sloan Cemetery in Lincoln County.

Frome the Charleston Daily Telegraph, April 1967.