ecorator’s
ouch
D
BY TERI WILLIAMS
PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER
The Past
When Polly was about ten years old, a stranger came to her house. The man
told Polly’s mama, Laura Jean (Mincey) Victoria, that he was a writer and wanted
to ask her some questions about the origin of the Victoria family name for a book
he planned to write.
“She wouldn’t agree to it,” said Polly. “Back then older people were funny
about things like that. Mama didn’t want a stranger writing about her family to put
in a book.”
What had the writer known that made him so certain that he was on the trail
of a great story? The question hounded me as I drove away from Polly’s business,
Gabby’s. It was a question my love for history couldn’t resist.
From the website Find A Grave, a database of more than 162 million burial
records, I found 450 graves containing the surname Victoria. The website is a
great resource for ancestry research, although limited to information provided by
volunteers. When compared to results for a more common name like my own, 450
was a small number.
My eyes ran down the list of names that included two additional variations in
spelling: De Victoria (from Puerto Rico) and Fictorie (from the Netherlands). In
addition to those from the United States, graves could be found in places like the
Philippines, Romania, Slovakia, Brazil, and Belgium, with two listings for victims
who died in the Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland. Among the famous listings, I
discovered a Saint Victoria who was martyred for her faith in North Africa in 304
A.D., and the most celebrated Spanish composer of the 16th century, Tomas Luis
de Victoria. Hoping to find more clues from the Victoria Coat of Arms, I discovered
a family of nobility in Holland and another for an old Irish name from the province
of Ulster.
When Polly’s grandfather, William Victoria, died in June this past year
(2017), Polly realized that she was now another generation away from answers
to questions she might have asked. (Her grandmother, Mary Elizabeth McArthur
Victoria died in 1988.) Other than the name of her great-grandparents, Joe
Victoria, Sr., and Liddie (Brookins), and the fact that her grandfather, William
Victoria, was born in Baxley, Georgia, the story the writer from her childhood
hoped to uncover was now left to both mine and Polly’s imagination.
Hometown Living At Its Best 23
POLLY DURDEN
BRINGS A LITTLE
SUNSHINE INTO
EVERYONE’S DAY
WITH HER SILK
ARRANGEMENTS,
DECORATING
IDEAS, AND
WARM HEART.
T