12/08/2025
We were so happy to have the family of the late Willie Mae Boyer Shook gather at the gin this weekend. Turns out Willie Mae and her family lived on this property and her dad, Henry Hal Boyer actually ran the gin! Sounds like he knew how to run it so well that after he retired the owners needed him to come back to keep it operating so they let him run it from a recliner right there inside the gin. I loved hearing the stories about this place. I do think about it often because I know there’s a lot of history here so it was awesome to actually hear of this sweet families’ memories. Willie Mae’s family came from all over to her memorial, some wondering why she wasn’t buried closer to her family but when they got to the gin they realized, her life came full circle and it all made perfect sense. It also made sense to me that in all my efforts to come up with a name for the gin I just couldn’t so I left it as it is, The Gin at Boyer. It’s a family name that has history here so why change that? It’s perfect!
