Tazewell County, Virginia, Biography: Goldie May on Election Day Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Hayes ==================================================================== Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ==================================================================== The Tazewell Co ancestors of Goldie May Boling Stanley were the lines of Henry Boling and Elender Blankenship whose son, William A Boling was born in Tazewell Co and raised in Morgan Co, KY. Goldie May on Election Day 1932 Goldie May was as independent as a hog on ice, as dependable and constant as the sun coming up every morning, and honest as the day was long; a lie was not in her. Born dead Nov 1909 in a cabin in Johnson Co, KY at her grandparent's rural home, the doctor worked on her for over an hour until life evidenced in a faint cry. Goldie May always attributed her tenacious and persistent nature to that single event when she fought to overcome death. Elzie and Mary Jane Ward's granddaughter lived with them, along with her mother Trinnie and siblings, until sometime between 1920 and 1925 when Trinnie and the kids moved to Coalwood in McDowell Co. Trinnie ran a boarding house for J. P. Jennings who owned a sawmill locally. Whether Trinnie and Press Jennings ever legally married, or merely "jumped the broom" as was common in isolated rural mountain areas, they had some of the finest children who ever graced West Virginia, my mother's half siblings. After James Preston Jennings died, the family struggled; Trinnie and the older kids working in fields gathering other people's harvest making fifty cents a day, and Goldie May tending the little ones at home. Five year old Mary was taken away from the family because she wouldn't stay in school. Trinnie would walk her to school and she would take a shortcut through the hills and beat her mother back home. Every peddler that came by in the ensuing years would be questioned if they had seen a young girl about this or that age depending on the number of years Mary had been gone. Such a miscarriage of justice was something a widow woman with seven children and no resources was incapable of defending against. In 1925, a desperate Goldie May married my father, Bob Stanley, to get away from the heavy responsibilities of her nuclear family. She always said she jumped from the frying pan into the fire, but being no quitter, and having a philosophical outlook on life, she did the best she could through the years in the bed she had made for herself. The Great Depression was the Great Equalizer; everyone was poor, not just in areas of our country, but nationwide and worldwide. People were on the move, traveling from the depression in one area to an equally depressed area some other place, stopping for any morsel of food that could be spared along the way. Goldie May was a person who would not turn anyone or anything away from her door. She always told me that Jesus comes to us in many forms, as do Angels, and that a hungry dog or cat would pass everyone's house in the coal camp to beg at her door. Thus, it broke her heart when two young brothers who were homeless orphans stopped at her door one day. They had cardboard tied to their feet for shoes. One was about age eleven and his younger brother was maybe eight. She had no food in the house at all, even for her own family, and thus, she had to turn them away with their tattered clothing and bloody feet. The stage being set for election day 1932 found a Goldie May who was ready to go against her staunch Republican mother to vote for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was four miles to the polls and not knowing how to drive, as well as not having a car even if she did, she started out walking on the twisting, curving roads of that area in McDowell Co, leading five year old daughter Evelyn and carrying three year old son Junior Stanley. Along came a car which stopped and the driver offered her a ride asking where she was going, to which she replied she was going to vote. The man asked her who she was voting for and when she told him, "Roosevelt", he told her she would never make it and drove away, leaving her standing there with two little children. Well, determination was my Mama's middle name, so she would have gotten there even if it had to be on her knees. As a result of her vote that day, her mother disowned her and wouldn't speak to her for three years. The reuniting of the family came about one day when a young girl, about thirteen years of age, came to her door. When Mommy opened the door, the girl said with tears in her eyes, "Don't you know me Goldie; I'm your sister Mary." I was going through my mother's old trunk one day not long ago, and I ran across a letter she had gotten years ago from Illinois Senator Percy in reply to a letter she had written him when we lived in Chicago as a result of the big migration from Appalachia to the factory cities of the north. I knew how patriotic she was, but I had never known she was that progressively involved, and I am grateful for the love and respect she instilled in all of us kids for the nation and our armed forces. Although she was a Democrat, she raised us kids to be as independently minded as she was. My sister was a 'right winger', my brother said to "shoot all the SOBs; they're all a bunch of crooks", and I'm more like my Mama, a Moderate Independent Populist. I send a monthly 'Letter to the Editor' of our local paper to put in my two cents worth on the state of the nation. I'm grateful to the spunky little woman of McDowell Co, WV who showed me the meaning of the word courage and standing up for what is right. christine hayes ~ oct 2006 My election letter to the editor http://www.tri-cityherald.com/