MArgAret, JimmY shAw, mArrieD for 62 YeArs, Die ApArt At 79 AnD 80

Margaret and Jimmy Shaw grew up with humble means in a Georgia town with no streetlights or indoor plumbing. They were teenagers when they got married — without telling their parents, walking back to their separate family homes from the ceremony. They remained married for nearly 63 years, even seeing their grandchildren go to college.

“It’s a beautiful love story,” granddaughter Tiffany McGee said.

But it was one with an ending unique to 2020. They died of the coronavirus within 24 hours of each other, in separate hospital rooms, without relatives or friends around them. Margaret Shaw, who did not own a cellphone, did not even know how her husband was faring while they were hospitalized in Miami.

“But when he made his transition, I think she knew,” McGee said.

Jimmy Shaw died July 17 at 80. Margaret Shaw died a day later, at 79.

In addition to McGee, they are survived by three children, seven more grandchildren and 11 greatgrandchildren, as well as a sister on Margaret Shaw’s side and two sisters on Jimmy Shaw’s.

From their start in Fort Gaines, Ga., near the Alabama line, their lives did not come easy. Both left high school before graduation, although they later got degrees. At mealtimes in Miami, Jimmy Shaw would abstain until his wife and children had finished eating, then scrape whatever food was left onto a plate for his dinner.

When The Miami Times commemorated the couple’s 50th anniversary in 2007, Margaret Shaw defined a good marriage knowingly as one in which “you learn from your mistakes, because everyone makes mistakes.”

It was a lesson they shared regularly at Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, which was a center of their lives for more than 50 years. Jimmy Shaw became a church deacon, and both taught Sunday school and worked in various church projects.

“Not only did they live the life, but they also taught by how their life was,” June Thomas, the church clerk, said. “They taught that life is not always peachy keen. You are going to have hard times, and you can survive the hard times. They were real people. They didn’t sugar-coat things.”

Margaret Louise Wallace was born Oct. 14, 1940, in Pahokee, Fla., the second of four children of Sanford and Sarah Holmes Wallace. She grew up on farmland once owned by the family that enslaved her ancestors. Jimmy Turner Shaw was born April 14, 1940, in Shorterville, Ala., the last of 14 children of Mark and Lucy McAllister Shaw, who were farmers.

They met in a store in Fort Gaines, where both families had moved, and by the time they made their way to the county clerk to get married at 17, they were expecting their first child.

Fort Gaines offered few opportunities, so the couple moved to the Overtown section of Miami.