Celebrating National Genealogy Day and Women's History Month

 

Making a Difference: Audrey Lee Attaway Garcia

Today is National Genealogy Day, and also Women's History Month, and I would like to highlight one of my 2nd cousins (1x removed), Audrey Lee Attaway. I had never met her, but after reading her story, I wish I had known her. I have found the below information through newspapers, U.S. Census records, historical documents, and military records.

Growing up in the Wiregrass

Audrey was the daughter of George Walden Attaway, Sr. and Nancy Adelle Culverhouse and lived in the small town Ariton in Dale County, Alabama, which is in the southeastern part of the state. Her father was a farmer who owned a general farm with about 80 acres and her mother was a homemaker. She had one sister, Verma, and two brothers, George Jr., and James. As a child and as a teenager, Audrey was active in school, her church, and her community in Center Ridge. 

Nurse Training and U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps

In June of 1944, at the age of 19, Audrey left home to attend business school in Montgomery. Afterward, she trained as a nurse at St. Margaret’s Hospital in the city.

One year later, in August of 1945, Audrey joined the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II while attending St. Margaret’s Hospital. According to the membership card file, she heard about the Cadet Nurse Corps through the daily newspaper. While in Montgomery, she was active in the Blue Triangle Club of the YWCA.

In 1948, she became a registered nurse after passing the Alabama state examination board. 

Family and Education

At the age of 29, U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Audrey Attaway married Mr. Edward George Garcia in Bedford, New York on May 29, 1954. Even though she married and had three young children under the age of 2 – twin girls and a boy, she continued her education at the University of Alabama School of Nursing in Tuscaloosa and received the first Sealantic Scholarship Award in 1958.

Working 14-hour days, she would study and perform family duties; however, what I love about this part of her story is that her husband supported her in taking care of the children after his accounting classes by fixing supper and getting them ready for bed.

Unfortunately at this time, I can’t find online records or newspaper articles between 1958 and her death in 2010; however, her obituary also stated that she was also a nurse with the VA Hospital in Birmingham, where she retired after 35 years. She died at the age of 85 and is buried at the Saint James Catholic Church Columbarium in Conway, South Carolina.