Virginia Frazer Boyle

Virginia Frazer Boyle (February 14, 1863 – December 13, 1938) was an American author of prose and poetry. Interested in the Antebellum South, she wrote several novels and more than 100 poems, many of which presented an idealized image of the era of plantation slavery. She served as the poet laureate of the United Confederate Veterans and the Confederated Southern Memorial Association. She had innumerable stories and poems published in magazines. Boyle did extraordinary war work for the U.S. during World War I, receiving citations and medals for her service for Italy, and was made life member of two of the French Academies.

Early life and education Virginia Frazer was born near Chattanooga, Tennessee, February 14, 1863. She was the daughter of Captain Charles Wesley Frazer, a representative of the Tennessee bar, and organizer of the Confederate Historical Relief Association in 1867, serving as its president during the last thirteen years of his life. Her mother Letitia S. Austin Frazer. Boyle had one brother, Charles Wesley Frazer, and one sister, Phoebe Frazer. Through the father, Boyle is descended from William Heritage, an English barrister. Kinston, North Carolina was built on his grant of land from the crown. His son-in-law was Jesse Cobb, a descendant of that Cobb who came over in the Treasurer in 1613. Boyle's mother was an Austin of Albemarle County, Virginia, and traced her descent to Robert McClenahan, a Scotsman, who came from the North of Ireland to the U.S. in 1623 and settled in Augusta County, Virginia. Robert McClenahan was Sheriff of Augusta County when the county covered several states and his son, Alexander, was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army. Boyle's grandparents Frazer, in 1822 crossed the Allegheny Mountains by wagon train from New Bern, North Carolina, which another ancestor had assisted in forming. Shipping their household goods by sailing vessel to Mobile, Alabama, they helped settle up the frontier of Alabama, then Mississippi, and finally Tennessee. John A. Frazer had what was called "a hot foot" in the vernacular, and took his young wife from a position of luxury to endure the hardships of the pioneer. The family lived in Memphis, Tennessee, for one hundred years. In recognition of her writings, she was honored by several societies that promoted the Lost Cause ideology. In 1913 she was the poet laureate of the United Confederate Veterans and previous to that time, was poet laureate of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association, while in 1915 she occupied the same position in connection with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Awards and honors She was awarded two medals and a diploma from Italy for her Red Cross work during the war.

Selected works Books The Other Side Brokenburne: A Southern Auntie's War Tale (1897) (text) Dark Er de Moon: A Devil's Tale (1899) Devil Tales (1900) (text) Serena: A Novel (1905) (text) Love's Songs and Bugle Calls (1906) (text) The Making of the Stars and Bars (1915) The Gold Star (1918)

Canticles "The Song of Memphis" (1919) "Christ in the Argonne"

Poems "The Other Side: An Historic Poem" (1893) "Old 'Bias's Vision" (1894) "Tennessee Centennial Ode" "Armistice Day" "Abraham Lincoln: A Centennial Poem" (1909) "The Wizard of the Saddle" "The Dream of the Alabama," centenary of Admiral Semmes (1909) "Union" (1917) "Robert Edward Lee: The South's Gift to Fame, a Poem" (19??)