It took Byrd Selby 44 years and stops in eight towns and cities to get to Jones County, and she regretted having to leave 47 years later.
Selby, who lives at The Cottages in Macon, moved to Eatonton Highway in Jones County in 1972 with her late husband, Warren. When he passed away in 2018, she started making plans to move again.
“I really hated to leave Jones County,” Selby said last week. “Warren made me promise I wouldn’t stay in that house by myself.”
About nine months after his death, she made the move to Macon.
The former Elizabeth Byrd Major is from the ‘town’ of Stormont, Va.
“There’s not even a post office there now,” she said. “There were two stores then, and one had a post office.”
Warren Selby lived in a nearby community in the same county, but they attended different high schools. They met at the church he attended.
“I went to his church to sing one Christmas,” she recalled, “and he was sitting in the choir next to me. He took me home that night.”
They started dating before Warren joined the Army and went overseas for two years. They corresponded on a regular basis and took up where they left off when he returned home. They married in September of 1949 but only with their fathers’ signatures. They were both just 20.
Selby had planned to begin her college career at James Madison but changed her mind, and a lawyer offered a job.
“I worked for him for less than a year,” she noted. “When the secretary for probation and parole left, I applied for that and got it. I worked there for about three years.”
Selby recalled that Warren got a job with a construction company in South Carolina, and management wanted him to go to Homestead, Florida. In the meantime, their first daughter, Kay, was born in 1952, and she quit work to become a full-time mother.
She said housing in the new locale was a problem.
“There were no apartments, so we bought a mobile home and trekked on down to Homestead.”
Warren’s job sent him to numerous cities in Georgia and one in Mississippi before he changed companies. That led to him going to Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama during the week, home weekends. During all those travels, Peggy was born in 1957 and Warren Jr. in 1960.
That mobile home went with them in the early moves, including Mississippi, according to Selby.
“We lived in that trailer. We had a room that added on – it was in sections –so that, when we got somewhere, it was the children’s playroom. So, the children were never upset.”
Warren grew tired of being away from home all week. He went to work locally with the Amerson Company, and they settled in Macon. Selby remembers that Warren told her, “We can’t stay here. You know we’re both from the country. We can’t stand having somebody’s door opening next to us. We’ve got to have space.“ After about eight years, a friend told her about a home for sale on Highway 129, about two miles out of Gray.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to go that far. That’s too far. I don’t want to go way up yonder,’” she chuckled.
Later, the couple looked at the house and discussed it at length, understanding a $5,000 deposit would be required.
Finally, Warren asked the owner if she would take a check on Sunday afternoon.
‘Young man, I’ll take a check any day of the week you put it in my hand,’ Selby recalled.
They prepared to move, and in the meantime, Warren started his own business in 1971.
“He decided he knew enough to do what Frank (Amerson) was doing, yet he was not getting the pay.”
Warren Selby built a successful commercial construction company, Warren Associates, over the next 23 years, and Warren Jr. became owner and President upon Senior’s retirement in 1994.
Her husband’s death in September of 2018 wasn’t Selby’s only loss then. Kay died of cancer just three weeks later, almost immediately after it was discovered.
Selby has had more than her share of health issues. She has had different forms of cancer four times, including leukemia six years ago. When she was diagnosed later with non-Hodgins lymphoma, she almost gave up.
“I sat down in the chair, and I thought, ‘well I guess this is it. I better go ahead and start cleaning out my closet.’ All of a sudden, this voice said, ‘God is going to take care of you.’ And, from then on, I just believed better.”
Selby next had melanoma and surgery. Then, after the move to Macon, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer, for which she has been receiving treatments.
“When I go see the doctor next week, if I am clear then, he won’t have to see me again for six months,” she said in a hopeful tone.
Selby, who has been playing the piano since her early teens, shared an experience that she acknowledges is hard to believe. After she had the non-Hodgins disease and treatments that caused her to lose all her hair, she questioned God as to why she should still be alive.
“I said, ‘God, why me? All these young people that have passed away’. As soon as I said that, He said, ‘Berta Morton (a friend in Gray) has been asking you to come play the piano for ages, and you haven’t done it.’
“I said, ‘Lord, I promise you, next Sunday I’m going to Stonebrook (assisted living facility in Gray), and I’m going to play the piano.’ So, Warren and I went every Sunday and played the piano.”
That started when she was 80 and continued for 10 years.
Despite her illnesses, Selby knows she was born with good genes. Her mother died at the age of 95, her dad at 102. She has one sister who is 90 and another who just turned 85.
“She is just a kid,” she joked. The former Jones County resident still visits, primarily the home place, on a somewhat regular basis. Warren III bought the property from her.
“My grandson has us up there for all the holidays,” she said. “He wants to continue the tradition… He said, ‘that is the only place I have been in my entire life’. So, we all go up there and take something.”
The soon-to-be 96-year-old still drives, but only in certain areas.
“I haven’t been on the interstate but one time,” she acknowledged. “I had been to the doctor’s office, and I couldn’t get in the lane to get on Riverside. I drive to the doctors’ offices, to lunch, places like that.”
The family photo album shows that the Selbys liked to travel.
“We traveled all over the world,” she said. “Australia, Buenos Aires, Hungary, Austria, Ireland. We went to Russia, Moscow; we went to Sweden, Hawaii, Greece, Italy, England twice.
“Warren went on his hunting trips, Africa, Artic Circle, out west. So, I said, ‘He goes on his hunting trips, and I don’t mind,’ so he goes on trips with me, and he’s happy. He never complained.”
Selby described a typical day for her as lunch out a couple of times a week, doctor visits and house cleaning. She does not sit still.
“I walk every day. I know everybody in here,” she offered. “I talk to people as they go around. I am a social person, and I don’t stay by myself. If I don’t do anything else, I’ll speak to a person, and I will give them a smile.
“My door is always open,” she added.
Another of Selby’s activities is knitting, which she has been doing for more than 50 years. She has knitted hundreds of baby blankets and caps, and she has won – in addition to numerous local ribbons – state knitting titles three times. The last one came three years ago when she was 92.
“In one year I gave away 21 baby blankets. Everybody in Gray Methodist just about has one of my blankets,” she said.
Every blanket has a label, “Knitted with loving care by Byrd Selby.”
The great-grandmother of 13 was asked to what she attributes to her longevity, still relatively good health and a sound mind. She thought a moment.
“Well, I try to live a good life, a Christian life,” she put forth. “I believe in God, and I believe in prayer. I believe in helping people. And,” she went on, “in being receptive to listening to people if they have a problem. I don’t always have an answer, but I can listen to them, and that’s what most people want you to do.
“If I can make just one person feel better during the day, that makes me happy.”
