MOTHER’S DAY TRIBUTE
55
them, but she despised the campaigns
and what it took to gain
office. She had a kind of love-hate
relationship with the political world
and all of its attendant deceptions.
In her day, the wives of most of
the state’s political leaders stayed at
home, but not Talley. She frequently
boasted of her decision to accompany
her husband to Tallahassee,
where she served as his secretary for
a salary of $6 a day. She often said
that when she first went up there, she
took one look at all the “fancy girls”
lined up in the Capitol building
waiting to entertain the legislators,
and she knew she couldn’t leave her
husband alone. He was hers, and she
didn’t plan to share him. With a wife
as entertaining and as memorable as
Talley, it’s no wonder Evans’ political
star rose quickly.
Of all the descriptions I’ve heard
of my grandmother’s social persona,
the one that really hit the mark
was when I heard somebody call
Talley “a real firecracker.” That’s
certainly what she was — in public.
But as all great performers know,
there is a life behind the scenes.
Talley was not just a one, two, or
even three-dimensional personality.
She was a tangle of complexities
which, at times, even she could not
unravel. Solicitous to her stellar
reputation to a fault, she kept her
world behind the scenes almost
entirely private. For Talley, being in
the presence of others was nearly
always synonymous with being on
stage — but a part of her grew so
weary of the show.
“Oh, good Godfrey, who is that?”
she’d cry out whenever she heard
someone pulling up in the driveway
to her home, Crary House. But as
she was complaining that she wasn’t
in the mood for company, she was
automatically patting the curls of
her gray-and-white hair to make
sure they were all in place. Moments
later the intrusive visitors would
enter to be hospitably entertained.
Talley always wanted to live in a
perfect world. Of course, I believed
in my grandmother’s ideals, and I
assumed they were nurtured in the
idyllic settings of her childhood.
When I was young, I imagined she
had lived in some Garden of Eden
the modern world destroyed before
I was born. I joined with her in >>
When she was 39, Talley garnered statewide acclaim as
the wife of the Florida Speaker of the House.
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