Margaret Gardner Hoey

Hoey was born Margaret Elizabeth Gardner in Shelby, North Carolina, on January 21, 1875, to Oliver Perry Gardner and his second wife, Margaret Young Gardner. After her mother's death when she was sixteen years old, Hoey helped her father raise her younger brothers and send them to school. She was the sister of Governor Oliver Max Gardner. Her brother's wife, Fay Webb-Gardner, was their distant cousin through the Blanton line. She was educated at Shelby Female College. Upon finishing her schooling, Hoey worked as a teacher. == Marriage and public life ==

'' in 1940 at the New York Navy Yard. She married lawyer, segregationist, and politician Clyde Roark Hoey, who was serving in the North Carolina House of Representatives, on March 22, 1900, and had three children: Clyde R. Hoey Jr., Charles Aycock Hoey, and Isabel Young Hoey. Her husband was elected as the Governor of North Carolina in 1936, and took office on January 7, 1937. She and her family moved to the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh. In 1940 she and her husband attended a launching ceremony for the USS North Carolina (BB-55) at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn where her daughter was serving as the ship's sponsor. Hoey was active in civic, social, artistic, and religious organizations including the Daughters of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Twentieth Century Book Players. Hoey taught Sunday school classes at her Methodist church, often having more than sixty people in attendance. == Death and legacy ==

She died of a heart attack on February 13, 1942, in Shelby and was buried in Sunset Cemetery. Her husband, who outlived her, wore a red rose or carnation in his lapel daily to honor her. Upon his death, the Bess Gardner Hoey Memorial Fund was established as a trust for charitable, educational, and religious purposes. == References ==