"the Bolands"

my mother was the baby in her family - child number 11. she has often told me that all poppy ( her father Ed Boland) had to do was hang his pants on the bedpost and mommy (ary carter boland) would get pregnant.  in fact when she found out that i was expecting our fourth child she said i must have mommy's genes. mommy and poppy were double first cousins which has caused quite a few statements about it being a miracle there were no crazies in our family.  the bolands and carters are so interwined that it takes a bit of thinking to get it all straight.  fortunately both families have been researched by others who complied a book on the carters and one on the bolands. anyway poppy's daddy and mommy's mother were sister and brother and poppy's mother and mommy's daddy were sister and brother.  we have always know mommy's name as ary but in the carter book we learned that her name was Mary Gonnie but poppy called her ary - possibly just a shortened form for mary.  interesting enough both of the mother's were named louisa and both fathers first name was william. to complicate the family line even more the two oldest girls married brothers.

carrie edna  married attie bounds
clara ethel married timothy bounds
maybelle  married charlie whitworth
ira eugene (called son) married ida bell hubbard
frank carter married eula lucas
william fredrick (called pete) married lelia hubbard
verner jackson ( called jinks) married margaret terry
euewell edward (called coot but known also by U.L.) married mattie sparkman
melvin wilton married madolyn mcquary
louise itascal married karl wayne easley
yvonne marie married prentice brown

i was blessed to know all the brothers and sisters except aunt maybelle.  she died from cancer when her daughter nell was just 10. mother and aunt louise helped raise nell so she has always seemed more like mother's sister than her niece. among the 11 kids they provided mommy and poppy with 30 grandchildren and umpteen great grands and great-great grands. i never got to know mommy.  she died the year before i was born but poppy lived with us some of the time i was growning up.  he developed diabetes which caused him to have to have several amputations.  he was bedridden the last few years of his life.  he would live with aunt louise for a while and then he would come stay with us - trying to give mother and aunt lousie a break ever now and then. he was at our house when he got ill the last time and was taken to the hospital where he passed away. i remember the next day at school one of the students came up to us in the hall to tell us that ed boland had died not realizing that he was our grandfather and we already knew all about it.

for such a big family they stayed really close.  i remember visiting the aunts and uncles and having meals at their homes and even spending the night with them at times.  most all of the brothers and sisters got together for  easter, thanksgiving and christmas plus almost every weekend during the summer months. aunt madolyn was from vardaman and at some point she and uncle melvin bought or rented a place in vardaman close to her dad's place.  they lived in shaw but came up to cc almost every weekend.  i can remember one year we went to their vardaman house to have our easter get together.  we had sooo many eggs that the adults who hid them couldn't remember where they all were. thanksgiving was at different homes - sometimes ours, sometimes uncle coot's and sometimes aunt louise's.  christmas was the biggest celebration of them all.  we had christmas eve at one house with a big meal and lots of presents, then christmas morning we had breakfast at a different house with a big meal and we had lunch at a different house with a big meal and then leftovers for supper. to finish the day off we had fireworks (which we had gotten under the christmas tree that morning) after dark. lots of fun times with most of the cousins. of couse some of the cousins were older and had kids themselves. beacause of that some of my first cousins kids seem more like my first cousins because they were closer to my age.

summer months were filled with boland family outings or bbqs. uncle coot and uncle melvin made this big bbq grill and put it down in uncle coot's yard. so most of the weekends were spent eating there with uncle melvin providing the meat and he and uncle coot doing the cooking.  the ladies provided everything else. those were some good hamburgers and steaks. some sunday afternoons would find us going to grenada lake for our cook-outs.

gradually over the years as we grew up and kids were having kids and brother and sisters were getting older our get togethers became limited to christmas dinner and we had to move it to the american legion building to have room for everybody. still good food and good times.

as you can tell eating was an important pass time for the boland family which was also evident by their size. of the 11 children and spouses the only ones still living is my mother and my aunt madolyn.