Mary A. Janes

Mary Janes (ca. 1924)
(photo from The Atlanta Constitution)

Mary A. Janes, daughter of Edward Horace Janes and Mary Ann (Mittie) Cunyus, was born on October 6, 1904 in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. She was the youngest of five children—Thomas W. Janes, Sarah M. Janes, Celeste Emily Janes, Louise H. Hanes, and Mary A. Janes. Mary is my 1st cousin 2x removed with our nearest comment relatives being Thomas P. Janes and Emily Eliza Fish. Thomas Janes, Georgia’s first commissioner of Agriculture, is my 2nd great grandfather and Mary’s grandfather. Thomas Janes was not the only political figure in her family. According to The Atlanta Constitution, Mary was “a cousin of Judge William H. Fish, who for years was judge of the supreme court of Georgia. On her maternal side she is closely related to Mrs. W. H. Felton, the first woman senator of the United States, and a relative to William Jennings Bryan, her grandmother being Miss Celeste Jennings, of Wetumpka, Ala.”

On April 30, 1910, Mary and her family lived on Angier Avenue in Atlanta. At age 5, Mary did not attend school. Her father was a commercial trader in crockery and her brother Thomas a city salesman in the lime and cement industry. Mary’s mother was enumerated as Mittie A. Janes and the mother of five children, all of which were living. Everyone in the home could read and write except for Mary. In August 1919, Mary, her mother, and sister Celeste were in New York after a week of “motoring in New England.” They spent the next 10 days at the Hotel Martinique before returning to Atlanta.

On January 13, 1920, Mary and her family lived on Pennsylvania Avenue in Atlanta. At age 15, Mary was attending school and could read and write. Her father was still selling crockery. The 1924 Atlanta city directory listed Mary and her mother as living at 1119 Peachtree Street. Mary attended the North Avenue Presbyterian School and Washington Seminary in Atlanta. Majoring in Bible studies, she was active in the athletic programs at both schools, as well as maintaining an active social life. 

Mary’s parents announced her engagement to Hugh Waldo Gallaher in The Atlanta Constitution on October 5, 1924. The announcement noted that Hugh lived in New York city at the time and that a 6 pm wedding would take place at the home of Mary’s sister Celeste in Providence, Rhode Island on October 18. Hugh, the son of Charles M. Gallaher and Minnie Burdette, was nine years older than Mary. He was born in Charleston, West Virginia and his maternal ancestral roots traced back to “Henry Adams, who settled in Massachusetts in 1632.” Hugh served in the U.S. Navy during World War I. At the time of their engagement, he worked for Kerr Steamship Company in New York. I’m wondering though, if Mary and Hugh had two wedding ceremonies. I say this because I found a marriage record for the two of them that shows they obtained a license in Manhattan on August 5, 1924 and were married on August 7. 

New York marriage index (click to enlarge)

Perhaps they had a simple ceremony in New York, followed by a formal ceremony in Rhode Island as described in The Atlanta Constitution on October 19, 1924. Celeste’s home was decorated with “a bank of palms and ferns, arranged in pyramid shape with tall white tapers burning on either side and at the top of the center.” Mary’s maid of honor and only attendant was Julia Tirrell of New York. Julia “wore an imported gown of canary-colored chiffon, fashioned over gold cloth and carried an arm bouquet of long-stemmed, yellow chrysanthemums, tied with yellow satin ribbon.” Mary’s brother-in-law W. Howard Perry gave her away. She wore a “wedding gown of heavy white satin, fashioned along straight simple lines. Her wedding veil of filmy white tulle and princess lace was held to her lovely blonde hair with a bandeau of pearls, with a ruche effect in the back and fell in graceful folds to the end of her white satin court train. She carried a huge shower bouquet of bride’s roses and valley lilies.” Hugh’s brother Maurice of New York was his best man. An elaborate reception was held afterwards. Celeste “wore an attractive gown of peach-colored chiffon, embroidered in crystal beads, fashioned over flesh-colored satin. Her corsage bouquet was of pink roses and valley lilies.” Mary’s mother wore “black lace veining black satin” and a “corsage bouquet of orchids.” Hugh’s mother wore “a robe of black sequins, fashioned over black satin and trimmed in black ostrich. Her corsage bouquet was of orchids and valley lilies.” Mary and Hugh honeymooned in Bermuda, sailing from Boston aboard the S.S. Fort St. George that left Bermuda on November 1, arriving in New York on November 3, 1924. Mary traveled in a “smart three-piece traveling costume of dark brown cloth, trimmed in beige fox fur and her hat was a French model to patch.” The passenger list recorded their home address as 523 W. 112th Street in New York. The couple made their home in Brooklyn, New York after returning from their honeymoon. 

One year later, Mary was in mourning following the death of her father from a stroke in Atlanta on November 28, 1925. Edward was buried at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta. The following spring (April 1926), Mary and Hugh left their home at 184 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn, New York and traveled to Havana, Cuba. They returned to Miami, Florida on April 15 aboard the S.S. Mseneca. They must have enjoyed Cuba, returning there at least twice. The second trip was in April 1927. A ship manifest shows they returned home to Miami aboard the S.S. New Northland arriving at port on April 12. They sailed to Cuba a third time in May 1930, returning to Miami on March 1, aboard the S.S. Iroquois. The ship manifest showed their home was in Forest Hills, New York at that time. 

Mary and Hugh as listed on the List of United States Citizens
for the S.S. Iroquois (ca. March 1930) (click to enlarge)

I’ve been unable to find Mary and Hugh in the 1930 census records. Census day was April 1 that year so perhaps they were still in Miami vs. at home in New York when the census enumerator knocked on their door. The paper trail picks up again in 1934. Sometime after their trip to Cuba, Mary and Hugh moved to Florida. Sadly, Hugh died suddenly of heart trouble at their home in Miami Beach, Florida on May 22, 1934. He was just 38 years old. At the time, Mary and Hugh lived at 313 Twenty-first Street in Miami Beach. Mary, his mother, and brother were the only survivors. Hugh was buried in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida on May 24, 1934 following a private funeral service held in the chapel of the Nicely Funeral Home. The service was performed by the Rev. J. C. Tyler, pastor of the Miami Beach Methodist Church. Mary was listed as Mrs. Mary Gaines Gallaher in the obituary published by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle in Brooklyn, New York on May 24, 1934.

Mary spent the summer of 1935 in Miami. She remained active in the Miami Beach social circles, hosting a cocktail party for Mrs. Mary Jay-Smith, a “beach socialite” in June 1935. In early September 1935, Mary was honored at a party held at the Royal Palm Club in Miami  to wish Mary and another socialite farewell. Both were leaving Miami for the north. One of the guests was Lloyd Fales. As it turns out, Mary was traveling north for love. On September 20, 1935, she quietly married Lloyd Huntington (or Hunting) Fales, son of Herbert E. Fales and Nettie Smith. The ceremony took place at the home of Lloyd’s mother in Boston, Massachusetts and was attended by immediate family only. Following an extended honeymoon, they returned to their winter home in Miami. Her new husband “received his education at the Florida Adirondack school and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was a member of the Delta Kapp Epsilon fraternity” according to The Atlanta Constitution on September 21, 1935. In May 1936, Mary attended a cocktail party of the home of Edna Boggs. Mary had just returned from her latest trip to New York.

One interesting thing I discovered was a divorce announcement of Mary Jones Fales vs. Lloyd H. Fales recorded in the Miami News on August 8, 1936. Was this Mary and Lloyd or another couple with the same names. I have found no other mention of divorce and they were together in 1937 so I’m not sure what’s going on here but wanted to mention it.

Mary was in Atlanta the summer of 1936 when the book Gone With the Wind, written by Margaret Mitchell, was published. After she returned to Miami, Helen Rich, a reporter for the Miami Tribune, wrote that “Everyone around here [Miami] seems to know the author, Margaret Mitchell, or they know someone who knows her, and the stories they tell of her are most interesting. Yesterday I was checking colorful bits of authenticity with Mary Fales, who is from Atlanta, which is the setting of the story. She was there this summer when the book first came out, and she says that everyone up there feels that the characters are definitely drawn from life tho’ they can’t quite figure out whose, and “Peggy” Mitchell won’t tell!” So, I wonder which category Mary fit in—knew Margaret Mitchell, or knew someone who did? In October 1936, Mary and Lloyd traveled to Honolulu and then returned to their home on Royal Palm Avenue in Miami for the winter. Lloyd, known as an aviation pioneer in Miami, owned the Viking Airport on Biscayne Island from 1929 until the start of World War II when he closed it to join the Civil Air Patrol. Due to their interest in aviation, Mary and Lloyd supported and attended the annual air meet held in early December 1937. The society columns in the Miami Herald noted that Mary was stunning in her “smartest tweed” that day. Mary and Lloyd started 1938 in Florida, taking daily sun baths with friends. Following a summer spent in Maine, they returned to Florida early to oversee “the redecorating of their Alton Road home.” They were joined by Lloyd’s son John, who was back in Florida to work at the Miami Beach First National Bank.

On April 2, 1940, Mary and Lloyd lived in a rental home at 15 Canada La Jolla Boulevard in San Diego, San Diego County, California. The monthly rent for the home was $100. Lloyd was a proprietor at an airport. His 19-year-old son John, from a previous marriage to Harriette Folger McGuire, was living in the home. There was also a 29-year-old “houseboy” named Simeon Domino living in the home. During World War II, Lloyd, a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, “was commanding officer of Miami Coastal Patrol No. 7 and of Tow Target Unit No. 7 in Glendale California. After returning from the war, he “was involved in private investment work in Miami.”

On February 12, 1947, Mary hosted a party of 10 at a weekly fashion luncheon held at a Miami Surf Club. Tables were decorated with Valentines and spring flowers of yellow and blue. The models “entered the stage through a huge red heart.” Mary traveled to Atlanta in January 1948 to celebrate her mother’s birthday. She and Lloyd spent time in Kennebunkport, Maine the summer of 1949. In December, they were back in Miami for a Biscayne Yacht Club race, taking their French poodle, Timmy, along for the ride. The poodle’s registered name was Gloriett Tamino, “for the great hero of Mozart’s Magic Flute.” When traveling aboard the family cruiser, named Maisie, Timmy apparently liked to “fish,” tugging “from time to time when he thinks he might have a bite.”

In early July 1952, Mary and Lloyd left their home at 4040 Kiaora Street in Coconut Grove, Florida, headed for New York for a planned trip to Europe with Gen. and Mrs. Francis Brady. The foursome took a car across the pond planning to “motor through the continent.” On October 18, 1952, they boarded the S.S. Constitution in Naples, Italy for a first-class trip back home, arriving in New York on October 27, 1952. 

S.S. Constitution (ca. 1953), Théodore Brauner, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

In October 1953, Mary and Lloyd took the trip of a lifetime when they traveled to the Holy Land. During their visit to Jerusalem, they saw camel caravans and “entire families on small donkeys, just as in Biblical days.” Mary taught Sunday School classes at her church and felt what she learned on the trip could “make the Holy Land and the Bible ‘come more alive’ to her pupils. Mary and Lloyd visited Casablanca and were “amazed at the beautiful new and modern apartment houses … each with its own porch overlooking the blue Mediterranean.” Their visit to Casablanca coincided with “the uprising when the new Sultan took over. There were French troops in trucks in the streets when they went shopping one day and when they came out of the bazaar, the troops were in the streets with their guns at the ready, and everyone on the street was standing with his back to the wall. (There had been 7 killings the day before.)” With the help of their guide, they quickly retreated to the safety of their hotel. The couple spent the summer of 1954 in Maine. Upon their October return to Coconut Grove, Mary decided all the work required to be away for an entire summer was no longer worthwhile. It had to be exhausting to close up one house and immediately have to unpack and open up another.

In 1960, Lloyd worked as a securities broker at Thomso-McKinnon-Auchincloss-Kohlmeyer Inc. in Coral Gables, just a short distance from their home in Miami. In July 1972, they attended the Bath Club’s annual mid-summer Beachcomber fest, enjoying a dinner of lobster, steamed clams, and steak cooked on the beach.

Mary passed away on January 27, 1975 at her Sevilla Avenue home in Coral Gables, Florida. Buried at Newton Cemetery in Newton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, she was 70 years old. From the looks of it, Mary had lived a full life—helping her second husband raise children from his first marriage (John, Julia, and Harriette), attending church and teaching Bible subjects to Sunday School classes and in the Unity Religious sect, traveling the world, all while enjoying a very social life.

References

• Atlanta, Georgia, City Directory, 1924.
• E. H. Janes is Dead; Last Rites Monday, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, November 29, 1925.
• Farewell Fete is Planned for Beach Socialite, Miami Tribune, Miami, Florida, June 9, 1935.
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/178124247/mary-ann-janes: accessed 29 January 2022), memorial page for Mary Ann “Mittie” Cunyus Janes (28 Jan 1863–24 Oct 1948), Find a Grave Memorial ID 178124247, citing Westview Cemetery, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, USA; maintained by WWII History Fan (contributor 48178484).
• Gallaher, Hugh W., Florida State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death no. 7896.
• Harrison, Gwen, Conversation Piece, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, December 12, 1949.
• Holy Land Lives When Mrs. Fales Teaches Bible Now, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, October 16, 1953.
• Hugh L. Gallaher, The Daily News Leader, Staunton, Virginia, May 24, 1934.
• Hugh W. Gallaher, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, May 24, 1934.
• Janes, Edward Horace, Fulton and Campbell Counties, Georgia, Cemetery Records, 1857–1933.
• Janes, Edward Horace, Georgia State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death no. 29768.
• Janes-Gallaher Wedding Takes Place in Rhode Island, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, October 19, 1924.
• Janes–Gallaher, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, October 5, 1924.
• Lloyd Fales, 75, Aviation Pioneer, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, October 13, 1975.
• Lloyd Hunting Fales, Massachusetts, U.S., Birth Records, 1840–1915.
• Mary J. Fales, 70, An Instructor in Unity, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, January 29, 1975.
• Mary Janes, New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907–2018.
• Miami Beach Her Summer Choice, Miami Tribune, Miami, Florida, July 7, 1935.
• Miss Janes to Wed Mr. Gallaher, of New York, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, October 5, 1924.
• Mrs. Gallaher Weds Mr. Fales in Boston, Mass., The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, September 21, 1935.
• Rich, Helen B., From My Notebook, Miami Tribune, Miami, Florida, October 15, 1936.
• Surf Club Holds Style Show Here, The Miami News, Miami, Florida, February 13, 1947.
• United States Federal Census, Atlanta Ward 4, Fulton County, Georgia, 1910.
• United States Federal Census, Rome Ward 3, Floyd County, Georgia, 1900.
• United States Federal Census, San Diego, San Diego County, California, 1940.
• The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, August 21, 1919.
• List of United States Citizens, S.S. Mseneca, April 1926.
• List of United States Citizens, S.S. Iroquois, March 1, 1930.
• Hugh W. Gallaher, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, May 23, 1934.
• Hugh W. Gallaher, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, May 24, 1934.
• Farewell Party, Miami Tribune, Miami, Florida, September 4, 1935.
• The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, May 17, 1936, December 7, 1937, January 12, 1938, November 6, 1938, and July 18, 1972.
• Atlanta Bound, The Miami News, Miami, Florida, January 22, 1948.
• Come Join Me, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, June 22, 1952.
• List of In-Bound Passengers, S.S. Constitution, October 1952.
• Fales, Mary J., The Miami News, Miami, Florida, January 29, 1975.
• Too Much Trouble, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, October 29, 1954.
• List of United States Citizens, S.S. Fort St. George, November 1924. 
• S.S. Constitution photo, Théodore Brauner, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ss_Constitution1953.jpg.