Virginia Stanley

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Virginia Stanley [send private message]

Biography

Virginia Stanley is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Stephen Hopkins.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Samuel Eaton.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Samuel Fuller.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Francis Eaton.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Francis Billington.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger John Billington.

Virginia Stanley is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger Elizabeth Fisher.

I was born in Miami, Florida at the Riverside Hospital. My family was living in Hollywood, Florida at the time but for some reason went to Miami for the big event. My father paid $50.00 in cash for the birth. I still have the receipt. My father was a successful insurance executive in a company he helped found. My mother was a third grade school teacher. Tragically, my mother lost her eyesight when I was six years old. She was pregnant with my little brother at the time and so she never saw her only son.

We moved from Hollywood to Ft. Pierce and then to West Palm Beach, Florida. When I was nine, my father walked into the house and announced that we were moving to Mexico. He had plans to buy a small hotel in a tiny village. Apparently, he had been on the wrong end of a power struggle in the insurance company. We spent several weeks in the village while my father negotiated with the owner...unsuccessfully. He got out a map and asked me to locate the closest city. That city was Guadalajara. We rented a large villa that came complete with seven live-in servants. I went to the American School where half the day was in English and half the day in Spanish. One of the servants was named Victoria. She was the cook and she had a young daughter named Yolanda. The family sent Yolanda to school with the rest of us. They became like family except that Victoria always insisted that they "keep their place" as servants. That was a foreign concept to us. But that left Yolanda with one foot in each culture. Victoria eventually ran all the other servants away and insisted on doing everything herself.

I travelled with my father throughout the area to small villages where we bought old iron---keys, spurs, locks, branding irons, etc. The villagers had never seen blonde hair. The children asked me if they could touch my hair so I bent over. There was a collective gasp. They treated us like royalty. They were extremely kind and generous. We took the iron across the border and sold it to antique dealers across the southwestern US.

We moved back to the US when I threatened to renounce my American citizenship and live permanently in Mexico. We lived in San Antonio, Texas where I finished high school. I graduated from Edison High School. Because we didn't have any records of my education, they just put me into all senior classes and graduated me with my age group.

In Mexico, when I was supposed to be in the 11th grade, there were not enough students so I enjoyed a year of volunteer work in a hospital. The doctors indulged my interest in medicine by allowing me to assist in surgeries. The medical students took me to the medical school to observe classes. They really enjoyed showing me their cadaver collection. The doctors all got together and gave me a grand 16th birthday party at my house.

After working a few years, I went to the University of Miami and got a B.A. degree majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Psychology. After graduating I became a social worker for the State of Florida.

I married a jazz musician, Brad McDougall. Brad was with a band named Matrix that recorded several albums and toured. We moved from Miami to Rockton, Illinois near Brad's family farm. To keep myself occupied while my husband was on tour, I restored a Victorian house, built in 1892. I taught myself carpentry and plumbing. I had an organic garden. I went on tour with the band one season. We toured from Colorado, up and down the Pacific Coast and through several western states. I was the road manager on that tour at the insistence of Flora Purim, a Brazilian jazz singer, who agreed to tour with us on the condition that I go as road manager. Flora and I had a blast driving her baby blue Cadillac convertible behind the bus. Needless to say I met many famous people on that tour.

After the band broke up, we returned to Miami. I went back to work for the State. Brad went on tour with A Chorus Line. We split up. I decided to go to law school. I graduated from the University of Miami in 1985 and immediately went into private practice. After 15 years of practicing law I was offered a job evaluating federal judges for the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary. That allowed me to live anywhere I wanted. I chose Maine.

In Maine I met my future partner, Walter Chiappini. He owned a large property so we decided to fulfill a lifelong dream....farming. We got goats, pigs, chickens and turkeys. For 10 years we farmed and loved it. We retired from farming in 2019 but still live on the farm.

I had been coming to Maine often over the years researching my family. Although my roots were all Southern...as far as I knew, my great great grandmother Octavia Stanley gave Maine as her place of birth in the 1850 census. She lived next door to a man named William Nickels who was also born in Maine. I guessed that he was her brother. I knew nothing about my Yankee ancestors. So I jumped on a plane and went to Maine. Fortunately, there was a lot to find. There I found two houses built in the mid 18th century that were built by my ancestors. Unlike my Southern ancestors, there were lots of records and because of the sparse population, much of Maine has changed very little. Maine is a treasure trove of my family history. I also found five Mayflower ancestors.

My mother and aunt had started working on the family tree many years before I was at all interested. One day I was in Virginia and noticed that I was driving past the Virginia State Archives. I knew my mother had been stuck on an ancestor named James Lee so I decided to go in to see if they could help. Needless to say the name James Lee in Virginia is extremely common. A very kind archivist decided to show me around. He took out huge ancient books of deeds. I was hooked. The rest is history.

Sources

• First-hand information entered by Virginia Stanl