Love and togetherness: The Mays family
PROGRESS 2018— When Emily Mays graduated from Phil Campbell High School, married and moved away from Franklin County in 2000, she never planned to return to the family home place in Northwest Alabama. But now, she and daughter Lola, 9, are well-settled on “Oliver Hill” in East Franklin – just down the road from her parents, Joyce and Gary Oliver, and her sister Anna Duncan’s family.
“Family means love and togetherness,” said Mays. “Even if you’re not with them, you’re with them. They are the first ones you want to go tell good news or the ones you want to get to when you have bad news. It’s about love for each other, unconditionally, and togetherness.”
That togetherness became a little easier when Mays returned home. She first moved to Starkville, Miss., in 2000 and then to Auburn in 2005, where daughter Lola was born and Mays began her career in finance. The family moved back to Franklin County in 2009 – even though it wasn’t a goal on radar, in the beginning. “We had no intentions of coming home,” Mays said. Jobs opened in Franklin at the right time, and it seemed like the best thing for their family. “Everything worked out perfectly.”
After Mays’ divorce in 2012, she and Lola moved to East Franklin – to a house that happened to be for sale on Oliver Hill. “We walked by this house, and Anna said, ‘Why don’t you live there?’ It was God’s timing, and it just worked out perfectly.”
Lola, a fourth-grader at Phil Campbell Elementary, loves that her family is “just the girls.” The mommy-daughter pair makes plenty of time for fun together. Lola’s favorites include activities at home, like baking and cooking. The two will often cook together with Duncans and Olivers, firing up the grill whenever possible. “We make a lot of stuff,” Mays said. “I like to cook Italian, and the girls like when I do a pot of beans and cornbread.”
Lola said she also enjoys shopping and eating out – Rigatoni’s in Florence is a favorite after piano recitals – as well as playing basketball and taking art classes.
Family dinners aren’t the only times spent with the Duncans and Olivers. The eight are often together.
“We like to help Daddy (Gary Oliver) on the farm – that’s a lot of what Lola and I will do on Saturdays and Sundays,” Mays said. “He’ll save his cattle work until I’m home, and it’s a good avenue to do something outside with him.” Watching Lola and the cousins interact with farm life is a fun pastime for Mays. “I remember the first time she got cow manure on her shoes,” Mays said with a laugh. “I had to come home and wash shoes – whereas we grew up with that as a part of life.”
There’s plenty of cousin fun to be had, with March Duncan regularly spending weekend nights with the Mays ladies. “We keep a twin bed in Lola’s room for March,” Mays said. “If Anna has plans or events – a lot of her events are at night – I keep her girls, and when I work late, she keeps Lola.”
Lola and her grandfather share another hobby – posting photos online with social media. “He had gotten into taking pictures with his flip phone,” Mays said. “I started him an Instagram account, and he got on Facebook for the first time. He loves to take these awesome photos, so we got him an iPhone. So that’s something we all participate in – Dad’s Instagram.”
“He climbed on top of a truck to take a picture,” Lola said. “He really gets into it.”
“And since social media is primarily what I do as a job, it’s fun to see them really get into it and their take on how they see things,” Mays added.
Mays works in Red Bay as vice president/senior marketing director at Community Spirit Bank and is a member of the board of directors for the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce. She can often be found at community events, like Red Bay Founders Day, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce Watermelon Festival and the county Relay for Life. Between her sister’s job with the American Cancer Society and her own role as a face of Community Spirit Bank, both their families find plenty of opportunities to interact with the community.
“Our kids have really gotten to learn a lot about citizenship and being good helpers,” Mays said. “We’ve gotten to use that as an opportunity to encourage them about why it’s important for our communities to have things like the Watermelon Festival … They get to see the work that goes into having something like this.”
Mays puts a high value on the great qualities of Franklin County, a place she finds safe and welcoming, where everyone waves at everyone else – whether they know each other or not.
“I love the feeling of local love,” Mays said. “Everybody gets out and supports what’s here. I didn’t know how much I appreciated that hometown feeling – feeling like you belong – until I lived away and I came back.”
Family traditions include Sunday lunch at the Olivers’ every week. “We sit on the porch in the rocking chairs after lunch and talk about life – and now we look at our Instagrams together,” Mays said.
Like for many families, the holiday season is also abundant with traditions. One annual Christmas tradition is getting a live tree from a local farm. “We usually go the Saturday after Thanksgiving when they open,” Mays said. The holiday season for the Mays and the Duncans is filled with making memories with their girls – even after Christmas is over, when the family enjoys going out for Chinese food together to wrap up the festivities.
“I think the holidays really bring out that sentiment, that desire for those warm feelings. We say, ‘What will our girls remember?’ because all of our childhood memories are so fond and wonderful,” Mays said. “Even though we worked a lot because we were always working on the farm, everything is warm and fuzzy. Everything is a good memory for us.”
“I think that’s what family is,” Mays added. “Whether it’s the two of your or four of you or all eight of us together … Joys are doubled and sorrows are halved with each other.”
