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Pearson's Last Auction Marks End of an Era
Pearson's Last Auction Marks End of an EraBy Bill Walsh
Times-Democrat Staff Writer
Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening on Saturday, Flash and Bernice Pearson will slip off their heavy and oppressive old winter coats, figuratively speaking, and breath a sigh of soothing relief.
That shedding of the burden will accompany the final falling of the couple's auctioneering hammers, concluding the sale of their Midland home and 47-acres farm and all that has been contained therein. Bernice knows the impending possible emotional rush; she has advised clients of its arrival for more than 40 years.
"I used to tell people that we were selling for when they would get upset going into an auction...that you have been wearing a heavy overcoat that has been weighing you down," Bernice recounted at the still-in-the-family farm last week. "Come Saturday afternoon," she would tell them, "when I give you this check for what you have realized from your auction, you are going to take that coat off, and you are going to feel such relief.
"I want that coat to come off; I want that relief," she said.
The proprietors of Pearson Auction since the mid 1950s, Flash and Bernice have been in semi-retirement since 2004, coming back to the area from what is now home in Georgia only to handle a discreet number of estate auctions for long-established Fauquier families.
This final sale replaces "semi" with permanent retirement.
The couple has been, for the most part, living lakeside in Lavonia, in northeast Georgia, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, for the better part of five years and will be there even more now.
The sprawling farmhouse in Midland, the oldest part of which dates to about 1723, will be emptied out, all the household goods being sold from two large tents on the grounds. The house, a 1957 Chevy convertible and a rare 1931 Ford wide-bed pick-up truck will be sold with reserves. Everything else goes to the highest bidder, nothing held back, save a few keepsakes, already gone, and a few favorite pieces that the couple's three children selected.
"We will have four auctioneers, two going all the time, possibly three, depending on the crowd," Bernice said. Of course, she said, she will be working the sale.
"I would drive everyone nuts," if she were sitting, not working, Bernice said, while still recognizing that parts of the sale are going to be emotionally challenging.
"I can anticipate that there is going to be something held up, and I'm going to choke up," she admitted. "I think I might have difficulty if it is something that belonged to Mrs. Pearson or my mother. But I can do whatever I have to do. I won't want anybody messing with me for about a half-hour afterwards, but I think it will be a big burden lifted. We can't keep everything, and a lot [of the emotion, or its lack] will depend on who buys it," she said.
The chances are huge she will know them by name. The chances are equally good that she will know them as friends.
"I just don't think the crowd is going to be so big anymore, in this day and age," she said. "An auction like this used to bring in 400 or 500 people, but I just don't think that'll happen now. We're just not known anymore."
Not known?
Flash and Bernice Pearson have been totally immersed in Fauquier County since their births here some few years ago. If you don't know them, if they don't know you, this much is clear: You are a newcomer, and you haven't gotten out much into the community.
"We always tried to do a minimum of 25 charity auctions a year, especially if it was for education, for homeless shelters, women's shelters, churches, firehouses," she said. "[Former county Zoning Administrator] Carolyn Bowen tried to add up how much we had raised for charity one time years ago, and she stopped at something over $2 million, and that was a few years ago"
Not known anymore?
Then that means that the hordes of children she shepherded through the 4-H Young Dominion Club over the years and the huge herds of children he helped with FFA and 4-H cattle club projects have all moved away.
Not known anymore has no place in what will take place come Saturday.
"The house and 47-plus acres are going to be offered, but, obviously, we are not going to give it away," Bernice said, though she and her husband of 52 years, her business partner of more than 30 years haven't yet established a reserve price.
"I know this sounds a little strange in this day and age," she said, "but if a young couple with children wanted to buy this place, and they could swing anywhere in a reasonable ballpark [to the asking price], we'd bend over backwards to make it work. We have said we'd finance it in order to make it possible."
There is an open house Thursday, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Other than that, potential buyers of the home and acreage need to come to the auction prepared.
"They will have to have a $20,000 certified check or letter of intent from a bank, or a pre-approved card from one of us," in order to make a last-minute tour and assessment on Saturday, Bernice noted.
"This property doesn't owe us one penny. We have loved every minute of being here. It financed Carry-On Trailer," their son's extremely successful business, which now has plants in about a half-dozen states and has, for the past seven years, been named the largest and most successful in the industry, "it financed Pearson Auction, it sent three kids to college. What else could you ask for?"
Bernice launched the auctioneering career that helped make all that possible at the relatively advanced age of 42. She was, without a doubt, the first female auctioneer in Fauquier County. It is entirely likely that she was the first in the commonwealth, though, she said, a Roanoke woman started up about the same time.
Flash retired from Bell Atlantic a few years later, took the same classes she had taken in High Point, N.C., and joined her in a business that was up to doing about 100 for-profit auctions a year in addition to the charity work, and holding a consignment auction in Catlett on Thursday nights for years.
Things began winding down as their son's business was gearing up. He expanded into a new plant near Lawrenceville, Ga., and established his corporate headquarters there. Flash and Bernice bought a house nearby, also just down the street from another son.
"Years ago, we had an auction in my family, and it was very poorly handled," Bernice said, "and I swore up and down that I would never let an old person go through that. I've always said that every auction is my personal auction, but now I realize how far off I was, because this really is my personal auction," she said with an ever-ready laugh.
It matters little whether the auction is theirs, or someone else's, what made the Pearsons successful was taking care of the obligations.
"The obligation to the seller was always honesty and loyalty," she said. "The obligation to the buyer was always honesty. The Golden Rule should apply at all auctions," and it will certainly apply to the finale.
"We've enjoyed every minute of it," she said. "We have had fun working together; that's what's been so neat. I'm temperamental and he's smooth-tempered, thank the Lord," and it's been a great partnership.
It will be, Flash and Bernice's legion of friends are certain, a neat retirement, too.
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