Valerie Boles

Valerie Fennell was born in 1932, in Islandton, South Carolina, to William Husie Fennell, a U.S. Army veteran of the First World War, and Seleaner Jones. Her mother died in 1938, when Valerie was five years old. Her father remarried, to Sheldonia Glover (1917–1979). Between the two marriages, Boles had three brothers and eleven sisters. At an early age, Boles became a baptized member of the Deep Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Islandton. After graduating Mather Junior College in the early 1960s, she became a licensed beautician in Beaufort County. ==Personal life==

Boles was in a common-law marriage with Percy H. Washington (1890–1973), a root doctor known as Dr. Eagle (renamed Dr. Buzzard in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) with whom she had one child: Anthony Ray Fennell (1954–2019). Boles took over Washington's practice, which doubled as their 1950-built 1408 Congress Street home in Beaufort, South Carolina, after his death in 1973. The "garden" in the book's title is Citizens Cemetery in Beaufort. In the film, Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery was used to represent the "colored cemetery down the road". A recluse, Boles rarely allowed her photograph to be taken (there were only two known occurrences), much less allow people to touch her, due to her belief that she would become jinxed by a curse. "When you gave her money, she didn't want you to hand it to her," John Berendt said at the time of her death. "You had to put it down on a table or on the floor, because that way you can't 'work' with her hands. If you touch her, you're 'working her hand.'" played Judge Samuel L. White in the film (his own role being filled by Australian actor Jack Thompson). Seiler explained that he would meet with Boles on a bench in Savannah's Monterey Square. "We'd sit out there a few minutes, but she'd never say anything. She didn't trust me." In 2004, Boles was featured in Life magazine. ==Death==

Boles died in 2009, at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, aged 76. She was interred in Jerusalem Baptist Church Cemetery in Cummings, South Carolina, along with her father and son. ==References==