Bessie Lillian Bagley born on September 3, 1896 at or near Streator, La Salle County, north central Illinois, the third of six children born to Arthur George Kime and Anna Blanche (Brooker) Kime. Only Bessie and two sisters Myrtle and Mabel lived past early childhood. In 1908 Arthur Kime moved his family to Willowbank Township outside Edgeley, La Moure County, North Dakota where her father farmed, traded horses, and worked odd jobs. At the age of 16 Bessie married John Henry Bagley, a Wisconsin native, in Ellendale, Dickey County, North Dakota on June 30, 1913. Between the time of their 1913 marriage and 1938 when the Dust Bowl drove them out of the area, John and Bessie Bagley farmed in Willowbank Township. After many years of marriage, Bessie gave birth on May 16, 1931 to a stillborn son John Henry Bagley, Jr. John and Bessie were never able to have children of their own, but they raised an abandoned foster son, Donald Hardman, from about 1928 to 1935, and they served as second parents to the children of Bessie's sister Mabel Farnsworth, who lived on a farm nearby. Bessie and her younger sister Mabel were particularly close sisters throughout their long lives. In the later years Bessie cared for her widowed father until his death in 1947.

In 1938 John and Bessie Bagley gave up the drought-striken Plains of North Dakota and moved to the area of Regal, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota to make a living near John's brothers and father. John passed away in 1950 and Bessie was forced to venture out on her own to make a living. Bessie spent a good share of her time between 1950 and 1965 working as a housekeeper for people in the Mankato area, where her sister Mabel performed similar work after the death of Mabel's husband in 1952. In 1961 Bessie's sister Mabel had moved to the vicinity of Willmar, Kandiyohi, Minnesota and remarried. Bessie retired to Willmar about 1965 to be closer to her sister and the Bagley family. By the early 1970's she had retired to a Senior Citizen's high rise in Willmar, keeping busy fixing the hair of her new elderly neighbors. Bessie Bagley died in the Willmar Care Center on March 7, 1986 and is buried next to her husband in the Roseville Cemetery, west of Hawick in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota.

Bessie (Kime) Bagley was a very intelligent, responsible person who played a mean game of Whist and Chinese Checkers. Many people, especially family, were forever grateful for the help she provided them in their time of need.