Truckin' on the Western Branch

Jean Oast Jean Oast was originally from Selma, Alabama. When she went to Randolph Macon Women’s College, she met and fell in love with Edward L. Oast Jr., a 1946 Churchland High School graduate who was a student at Virginia Military Institute and then Washington and Lee University. They were married for 60 years before he died in June 2014.

Ed was a lawyer and in the JAG Corps of the Air Force. His father was Edward L. Oast, a Circuit Court Judge.

In 1956 Ed and Jean came back to Portsmouth where Oast Jr. practiced law and served two terms on the City Council. When Judge Oast passed away in 1960, Ed and Jean Oast took over the family home that had been built in 1830 by the Tartt family. When the Judge bought the vacant house in 1940, it had no heat, no plumbing, no plaster. But several renovations and additions created the home the Oasts shared for decades.

Jean Oast and the circa 1830 Oast home. Images by Sheally

126