[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9873-9875]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 29, 1937

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, Monday next is Memorial Day. Monday next, 
being May 29, my memory goes back to May 29, 1937. It was a Saturday. I 
was working in the meat shop as a meat cutter at the Koppers Store in 
Stotesbury, Raleigh County, WV. It was a coal mining community. I 
started working there in the gas station for Koppers Store for $50 a 
month. I walked 4 miles to work and 4 miles back home, unless I might 
catch a bread truck or a milk truck.

[[Page 9874]]

  But on that Saturday, May 29, 1937, at 5 o'clock p.m., my two senior 
meat cutters at the Koppers Store in Stotesbury, WV, and I closed up 
the meat department and went home. I put on my best suit--actually, my 
only suit--and where did I go? I headed off to Sophia, 4 miles away, to 
the house of the local hard-shell Baptist preacher U.G. Nichols. And 
there I met with my high school sweetheart, Erma Ora James. May God 
bless her sweet memory. She was the beautiful daughter of a coal miner. 
This was a coal miner who helped to teach me to play the old fiddle 
tunes long ago: ``Sally Goodin,'' ``Mississippi Sawyer,'' ``Arkansas 
Traveler,'' and ``She'll Be Comin Round the Mountain,'' and so on.
  At 6 o'clock that evening, Preacher Nichols pronounced Erma--God 
bless her sweet name--and me ``husband and wife.'' That union, I am 
very proud to say, endured for 68 years, 9 months, and 24 days. So on 
May 29, 3 days from now, Erma and I would have celebrated our 69th 
wedding anniversary. That is something to brag about. Dizzy Dean said 
it was all right to brag, if you have done it, and Erma and I did it. 
Erma didn't quite go all the way. But on May 29, Erma and I would have 
celebrated our 69th wedding anniversary. That is something not heard 
about very often these days, a 69th wedding anniversary.
  The Scriptures tell us that ``whoso findeth a wife findeth a good 
thing and obtaineth favour of the Lord.'' Well, on that blessed day in 
1937--a long time ago--I certainly found a good thing. In looking back 
on the life that Erma and I shared, I can say, in accordance with the 
scriptural passage, that I must have been favored by the Lord.
  ``The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,'' wrote the English 
dramatist, John Ford, five centuries ago. How right John Ford was. When 
I think of Erma, I still think of the beautiful line from a song that I 
used to hear and play, I believe, when I played the fiddle: ``She came 
like an angel from the sky.'' For almost 69 years, this angel from the 
sky not only tolerated me, but she was the guiding light for me. She 
was my teacher. She taught me how to drive an automobile. She was my 
banker, my accountant.
  Very early in our marriage, as a matter of fact, on Sunday, the day 
after the Saturday evening on which Erma and I made our vows, I turned 
to her and said: ``Here is my wallet.'' I think I had saved up probably 
$300. I said: ``You keep it. When I need a dollar, I'll come to you and 
ask for it.'' That is the way it was, and that is the way it has been 
throughout our 69 years.
  What a job she did from the meager paychecks, and they were meager. 
Can you imagine. I started at $50 a month, and by the time I married, I 
had advanced. I was getting $70 a month when I married that sweetheart. 
She bought from this meager paycheck the things that we needed, our 
groceries. She paid the bills. She saved some money for a rainy day, 
and she gave me a monthly allowance.
  Erma was my greatest critic, and she was my greatest supporter.
  When I left the West Virginia Legislature to come to Congress, the 
other body, the House of Representatives, and this body, which also 
makes up the Congress, I was carrying 22 credit hours at Marshall 
College, now Marshall University, but she, Erma, managed our little 
grocery store. She took care of our two daughters, and she kept the 
home fires burning.
  When I was attending law school while serving in the U.S. Congress, 
she would drive from our home at that time in Arlington, VA. She would 
meet me on Capitol Hill here, around 5:30 p.m., and she would give me 
my supper. She brought it to me in a paper bag. I would eat my supper 
while Erma drove me in our car to American University Law School for my 
classes at 6 p.m. Then she would return later that evening, 8 o'clock 
or 9 o'clock, to pick me up and take me to our home in Arlington.
  I also said, quite truly, that Erma had put three kids through 
school: our two daughters and me. Erma was the mother of two most 
wonderful children, my daughters Mona Carole and Marjorie Ellen. 
Marjorie Ellen was here yesterday with me as we had lunch with some 
friends in recognition--one might call it celebration, but I call it in 
recognition--of our 69th wedding anniversary. These two daughters have 
grown up to become outstanding women and mothers themselves. Marjorie 
was here with me and with her husband, Jon Moore. Like me, those 
daughters owe so much to the marvelous and wonderful woman they called 
``mother.''
  Through the years, Erma was my constant companion. She was there with 
me, by my side, on the campaign trails. She was with me in 1958 when, 
as a Congressman, I made a tour of the economically depressed areas of 
the State and other parts of the country. She was with me in April 
1969, in Mexico City, Mexico, when I served as a delegate to the 
Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Conference. She was with me on 
all my trips to Europe and Asia. She was always there. Erma was always 
there with me at my side.
  She is with me today, I know. For nearly 69 years, that woman, the 
greatest woman I ever met--I have met queens and great women of the 
world--was with me. She was always with me. She is with me now, I know. 
For nearly 69 years, she was my comfort in times of sorrow. She was 
stoic and brave. She never flinched in times of trouble.

       We have lived and loved together through many changing 
     years; we have shared each other's gladness and wept each 
     other's tears; I have known ne're a sorrow that was long 
     unsoothed by Erma; for thy smiles can make a summer where 
     darkness else would be.

  I quoted from the lines of Charles Jeffries, ``We Have Lived and 
Loved Together.''
  This quiet, self-contained coal miner's daughter confronted 
demonstrators and protesters in front of our home in Arlington. She 
spent many evenings alone when I had to stay late at the Capitol 
attending the Nation's business. She always was most comfortable with 
the unassuming, down-to-earth West Virginia folks, back in the hills of 
West Virginia, like those back in the hills of Kentucky from which my 
friend, Senator Mitch McConnell, comes. She met with kings and shahs, 
princes and princesses, Governors and Senators, Presidents. She 
entertained the high and the mighty, the powerful and the wealthy of 
this Nation in a foreign land because it was important to her husband 
who served as the majority leader of this Senate and various other 
Senatorial offices. She did it all with an innate, inherent 
graciousness, incredible patience, and a soft, warm smile. She was a 
remarkable lady of great wisdom, but most of all, great gentleness, yet 
she could be tough when she saw injustice or unfairness.
  I was always so proud of her. In fact, the entire State of West 
Virginia took pride in Erma. That is why she was named West Virginia 
Daughter of the Year in 1990. Oh, could we call back the vanished 
years. And she was named West Virginia Mother of the Year a few years 
later.
  Marriage is a sacred institution. It is more than the result of 
repeating a few vows. Marriage is an oath, an oath before God. I have 
admired the ancient Romans so much, as did Montesquieu, because they 
would not break an oath. They would go to their death rather than break 
an oath. The ancient Romans. So marriage is an oath before God, a 
sacred and noble contract between a man and a woman. Read it in the 
Bible.
  It is a glorious commitment, a commitment of love, of caring, and of 
sacrifice. It is a commitment that Erma and I honored and enjoyed for 
almost 69 years, through the bad times as well as the good, down the 
rough roads as well as the smooth ones. Our life's journey was not 
always smooth and easy traveling. In fact, it was as bumpy at some 
times and as curvy as a West Virginia mountain road. But over the 
years, Erma and I learned that the challenge of a marriage is the 
ability to overcome imperfections, not just to ignore them. We always 
remembered our devotion to each other, despite our shortcomings and 
despite the difficulties we encountered along life's way.
  And when Erma and I married on that blessed Saturday evening nearly 
69 years ago, we were so proud and we were so poor that I could not 
even take

[[Page 9875]]

a day off from work. We did not have the money for a honeymoon, so 
after the wedding we went to a square dance, where I played the fiddle 
and she danced. On Monday morning, where was I? I was back at work in 
the grocery store in that coal-mining camp of Stotesbury. I was back at 
the meat counter in a coal-mining camp of Stotesbury. Although our 
fortunes did change, allowing us the opportunity to celebrate our 
anniversary in more special ways over the years, my Erma, my Erma never 
changed. She never changed. From being the wife of a meatcutter at the 
Koppers store in Stotesbury, WV, to being the wife of the majority 
leader of the U.S. Senate, Erma never stopped being herself. Her 
enduring patience and her steadfast support were the stabilizing 
constants in our marriage.
  Could I have made this journey without her? Could I have accomplished 
as much as I have accomplished--whatever that may have been--without 
her? I think not. The more important point is that I did it with Erma, 
and I would not have had it any other way. She was God's greatest gift 
to me.
  I don't know what I ever did to deserve her, but somewhere along the 
line, I must have done something that was especially good. The good 
Lord, the King, the Lord of Hosts, smiled down on me at 6 o'clock in 
the evening on May 29, 1937.
  So may I close with these few words that come from a poem, ``An Old 
Sweetheart of Mine,'' by James Whitcomb Riley.

     Is this her presence here with me,
     Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?
     A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air,
     Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?
     Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and truth--
     The semblance of the old love and the substance of the new,
     The then of changeless sunny days--the now of shower and 
           shine,
     But love forever smiling--as that old sweetheart of mine.

  Mr. President, I simply say that I give thanks to Almighty God for a 
long and good marriage and the richness which that hallowed institution 
has given to my life because of one very extraordinary woman.
  May God bless her and hold her to his bosom in Heaven until I come to 
be with her--this extraordinary woman, the daughter of a coal miner, 
Erma James Byrd.
  Mr. President, these are a few lines which were the favorite lines of 
Erma. The author's name is Isla Pascal Richardson. The lines are these:

     If I should ever leave you,
     Whom I love
     To go along the silent way,
     Grieve not,
     Nor speak of me with tears.

     But laugh and talk of me
     As if I were there beside you.
     For I will come--I'll come!
     Would I not find a way?
     Were tears and grief not be barriers?

     And when you hear a song or see a bird I loved,
     Please do not let your thoughts of me be sad.
     For I am loving you just as I always have . . .
     You were so good to me.

     There are so many things I wanted still to do--
     So many things to say to you . . .
     Remember, that I did not fear death.
     It was just leaving you that was so hard to face.

     We cannot see beyond this life
     But this you know . . . I loved you so
     Never doubt that I am with you still!

  Mr. President:

     Love does not die with the body
     And nothing in heaven or on earth
     Can keep apart those who love one another.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.

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