Dean Poling
The Valdosta Daily Times
VALDOSTA —
Harley Langdale Jr.’s work habits became something of a local legend. The forestry pioneer and patriarch of The Langdale Company is known to have risen early, settling into his office “some times as late as 5 a.m.”
Yet, every morning, by the time he rose, wife Eileen Cox Langdale had his grapefruit ready for him. Referring to those breakfast fruits in a 2004 article in The Valdosta Daily Times, she joked, “Maybe that’s the secret to his long life.”
The Langdales’ long life together, 67 years of marriage, came to an end Friday when Eileen Cox Langdale passed away at the age of 91. A graveside service is scheduled for her at 11 a.m. today, Sunset Hill Cemetery. She is survived by her husband.
Born Feb. 24, 1919, in Santa Rosa County, Fla., Eileen was the youngest daughter of Decar Covington Cox and Minnie Gibson Cox. Her father was a naval stores producer. She spent her early childhood in South Carolina. The Cox family moved to Valdosta at about the time she was 12 years old.
“Eileen and her older sister, Annie Jeanette, whose music-loving mother saw to it that they take piano lessons together in elementary and high school, also attended classes together at Georgia State Woman’s College (now Valdosta State University) in Valdosta for three years,” writes John E. Lancaster in his book, “Judge Harley and His Boys: The Langdale Story.”
When Jeanette married, Eileen Cox finished her last year of school at Brenau College in Gainesville. “... She taught elementary school four years in Lowndes County, with two years each at Naylor and Pine Grove,” Lancaster writes.
These were the early years of World War II. While his brothers served in the Pacific, Harley Langdale Jr. had been physically disqualified from military service, 4-F because of leakage from an earlier appendectomy, he told The Times in a 2001 article. He stayed home to run the family business. He also met Eileen Cox.
He was friends with Jeanette and her husband, J.F. Holmes. He asked them to “bring him a date for a Sunday outing on the Alapaha River and a supper they were having afterward,” Lancaster writes. “Jeanette insisted that Eileen attend, so she did. And from then on ‘he and I were attracted to one another and we kept seeing one another,’ explained Eileen.”
Working the night shift as a summer job selling tickets with Georgia Southern Railroad, the couple scheduled their dates around her work. He’d drop her off at the station to start her 11 p.m. shift.
After four months of courtship, they married Aug. 21, 1943, in the home of the Rev. E.L. Todd.
Though she no longer taught school, Eileen Langdale became involved in the community. She was a honorary life member of the Camellia Garden Club and a member of the South Georgia Medical Center Auxiliary. She was a member of First Baptist Church.
She remained true to her alma mater even as it changed from the Georgia State Woman’s College to Valdosta State College to VSU. The Langdales have donated great sums of money to the university.
Last year, VSU President Patrick J. Schloss presented the Langdales with the President’s Medallion for their “generosity of time and personal resources” to the university. “Harley and Eileen Langdale have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to VSU,” Schloss said.
In opening the Langdale Hospice House, Harley Langdale made his substantial contribution in honor of Eileen and his sisters-in-law, Margaret and Jackie.
Friends and family remember her as a thoughtful soul, a loyal friend, who loved her community and the outdoors.
“Eileen was a kind, generous and very thoughtful person,” noted Jane and Ed Willis in a post on the Carson McLane Funeral Home website. “Roses were her delight. She gave them so freely from her beautiful garden, for the enjoyment of others. Fishing was her hobby, a sport in which she enthusiastically delighted. She will be missed by many, who esteemed her kindness and friendship.”
