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Toby (left) and Vera Beasley -
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Childhood sweethearts continuing a love story now more than six decades in the making, neither Toby nor Vera Beasley can remember who exactly decided they were an item.
“I guess we always just knew,” Toby said.
The pair had their eyes on one another for as far back as they can jointly recollect and, when Toby went away to fight in World War II, time nor space were deterrents for the young heart-eyed couple.
“We finished school and I went into the army in 1949 and spent three years and four months in Berlin, Germany, at the end of World War II,” Toby shared. “When I came home, we started seeing each other again and pretty quick after that I asked her if she wanted to get married.”
Married 66 years last December, the Beasleys say it’s been keeping the Lord at the center of their marriage that has held it together all these years. Two kids, Sissie and Richard, and lots of grandkids later, the Beasleys are still amazed at the blessings bestowed upon them.
“They had a little church that was fixin’ to be torn down on Highway 62 right as you come into Buna, and I bought it,” Toby said. “We turned that little church into a country music house and, on Saturday nights, everyone came and sang and I had a little band called Toby Beasley and the Country Cousins.
“Mama (Vera) sold snacks and candy there in the back and that’s where Sissie and Richard got their start singin’ and playin’ instruments. I played bass and we had guitars and a fiddle player, and it was lots of good family fun had there on the weekends.”
The Beasleys opened a general store at the nearby cinderblock building, adding a meat market inside to serve the townspeople and those passing through.
“When we first started out, we had $65 to stock the store with groceries,” Toby said. “I kept workin’ on the cookie route and Mama kept workin’ at the store and everything we made went right back into it; we had pretty good business.”
The Beasleys later built a small 8’x8’ plywood building near their home, where Beasley’s sausage was first created.
“It had a dirt floor and two drums turned over to smoke the sausage, and my wife built the first fire for Beasley’s Smokehouse Sausage,” said Toby. “I’d stay up ’til 2 or 3 in the morning, take a nap and then haul it in to work. I would hardly get in the store before people were at the door to buy sausage!”
Toby knew he had something special and continued to increase sausage production. The Beasleys kept the store open until they decided to dive into the sausage business full-time in the late ’70s. In 1994, Toby passed the torch on to Richard and Sissie, who have kept the family business going and growing for decades. Beasley’s Smokehouse Sausage can now be found in HEB, Market Basket, Brookshire Brothers and local Wal-Mart grocery stores, and is shipped all over the country.
As for Toby and Vera, the 2 a.m. sausage-making days are behind them, and they enjoy easy days spending time with one another in their Buna home. When asked the secret to a successful 66-year marriage, Vera said, “All I know is I love ’em and always have.”
Toby, always the jokester, said the couple has always tried to put God first, and “We’ve never talked about divorce… now, we’ve talked about murder, but never divorce.
“It’s not always been easy, but we both had love for the Lord and we built a life on that.”