Elvin McCary
| Elvin Columbus McCary | |
Alabama State Representative
for Anniston (now District 32) (elected 1942; full dates unavailable) | |
Alabama State Senator for Anniston
(dates unavailable) | |
| Born | February 27, 1907 Anniston, Calhoun County Alabama, USA |
|---|---|
| Died | September 28, 1981 (aged 74) Anniston, Alabama |
| Resting place | Edgemont Cemetery in Anniston |
| Political party | Democrat-turned-Republican (1950) Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1974 against George Wallace |
| Spouse(s) | (1) Missing (2) Margaret Pauline Waters Sloan McCary |
| Children | Anne McCary Childers Eileen M. Cline |
| Alma mater | Jacksonville (Alabama) State College |
| Occupation | Real estate businessman |
| Religion | Episcopalian |
Elvin Columbus McCary (February 27, 1907 – September 28, 1981) was a businessman and politician in his native Anniston in Calhoun County, Alabama, who defected in 1950 from the Democratic to the Republican Party. In the heavily Democratic year of 1974, he was the GOP nominee, a sacrificial lamb in the gubernatorial general election against entrenched Democrat George C. Wallace, who won the third of his four terms in the office.[1]
Background
McCary was a son of Cicero Columbus McCary (1877-1948) and the former Annie Mae Power (1890-1944).[2] He attended public schools in Anniston in Calhoun County in the northeastern portion of his state. He graduated in Anniston from Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, then known as Jacksonville State Normal School, and he then enrolled at New York University in New York City. He then returned to Anniston to engage in the real estate business and became involved in community and political matters.[1]
Political life
McCary served in both houses of the Alabama legislature but the dates are uncertain, based on the newspaper stories at the time of his 1981 death. He was elected to the House in 1942. In 1953, while in the state Senate, he was recognized as "the hardest working member of the state Senate." In 1946, McCary ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor; the office was won instead by another Democrat, James Clarence Inzer (1887-1967). McCary attributed his switch in parties to the need for a combination of political reform and the establishment of a two-party system in his native state. He favored fielding Republican candidates for all offices regardless of whether there was a realistic chance of election. Forrest French, a former Calhoun County Republican chairman, described McCary, accordingly, as "frank, full of candor, and we agreed in the party approach to politics. ... He constituted the [party] framework that was in existence even in the lean times." After his race against Wallace in which he polled 16 percent of the ballots cast, McCary said that despite his expected defeat, he believed that he had "accomplished my purpose. And I think the only hope for the Republican Party at the state level is to offer the voters a choice for all offices in all elections."[1]
Though the Alabama GOP had offered no nominee against George Wallace in either 1962 or 1970, it had fielded then U.S. Representative James Douglas Martin (1918-2017) of the state's 7th congressional district]] in the 1966 general election against Wallace's first wife and political stand-in, Lurleen Burns Wallace. At that time, Alabama governors could not succeed themselves.[3]
McCary was a close friend of Democrat James B. Allen, a two-term lieutenant governor from Gadsden who was elected in 1968 to the United States Senate.[1] Allen supported Wallace in 1974; Wallace subsequently appointed Allen's second wife, Maryon Pittman Allen (1925-2018), to fill the remaining months of Allen's term after the senator's unexpected death on June 1, 1978. McCary ran in the special election to choose Allen's successor for a two-year term but was defeated, 72-28 percent, by intraparty rival, George W. Nichols.[4] Nichols then withdrew from the contest, and James D. Martin of Gadsden replaced him as the nominee; Martin lost, 55-43 percent, to Democrat Donald W. Stewart (born 1940) of Anniston, who had defeated Maryon Allen in the special Democratic primary.[5]
After years of political failure, McCary lived to see a Republican breakthrough in Alabama in 1980 with the victories of Ronald W. Reagan as U.S. President and retired Admiral Jeremiah Denton to the same U.S. Senate seat earlier filled by Allen and sought by McCary. But Denton lost reelection to then Democrat, and later Republican convert, Richard Shelby.[6]
Personal life
About 1960, at the age of fifty-three, McCary wed the former Margaret Pauline Waters (1922-2004), a native of Detroit, Michigan, who moved to Alabama for her senior year of high school. From 1943 until their divorce in 1959, Margaret was married to James Dillard Sloan, Sr. (1920-1988), the father of McCary's stepson, Anniston lawyer and former Circuit Judge James D. Sloan, Jr. (born c. 1944). McCary had two daughters from a previous marriage, Anne Margaret McCary Childers and Eileen M. Cline, formerly of Troy, Virginia. Anne Childers is the widow of Ted Childers (c. 1960-2012) and the mother of three children.[7]
McCary was affiliated with the Episcopalian Church of St. Michael and All Angels in Anniston. He is interred, along with his second wife, at Edgemont Cemetery in Anniston.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Elvin Columbus McCary. wikitree.com. Retrieved on May 21, 2014.
- ↑ McCary in Alabama. findagrave.com. Retrieved on August 29, 2021.
- ↑ Billy Hathorn, "James Douglas Martin and the Alabama Republican Resurgence, 1962-1965," Gulf Coast Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 1993), pp. 68-69.
- ↑ McCary, Elvin. ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved on August 29, 2021.
- ↑ Stewart, Donald W.. ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved on May 21, 2014.
- ↑ Billy Hathorn, "A Dozen Years in the Political Wilderness: The Alabama Republican Party, 1966–1978", Gulf Coast Historical Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 34-36.
- ↑ Ted Childers obituary. The Gadsden Times. Retrieved on May 22, 2014.