Before she married Vernon Presley, Elvis mother’s name was Gladys Love Smith.The middle name seems appropriate, considering the bond between mother and son. Gladys Love Smith Presley was born April 25, 1912, about 15 miles outside Tupelo, Mississippi, in Pontotoc County.
Elvis’ father, Vernon Elvis Presley, was four years younger. He was born April 10, 1916, in Fulton, Mississippi.
Gladys and Vernon met in church, and eloped when she was 21 and he was 17 — too young to be legally married in the state. So Vernon claimed to be 22 on the marriage license, while Gladys shaved off a few years and told the Pontotoc County court clerk she was 19.
The wedding took place on June 17, 1933. Elvis Aaron Presley — “Aron,” on the birth certificate, which Vernon later said was a misspelling — was born Jan. 8, 1935; Elvis’ twin, Jesse Garon Presley, delivered 35 minutes earlier, was stillborn (Side note: Gladys’ younger sister, Clettes, married Vernon’s older brother, Vester.)
Gladys and her only child were very close (the Graceland website describes her as “a sweet mama bear”). But times were tough (“The young family lived in poverty,” reported People magazine, after Elvis’ death). Elvis’ parents worked various jobs; Vernon, at times, was a truck driver and hog farmer; Gladys worked at a garment factory. The family lost their Tupelo home after Vernon was sent to the “Parchman Farm” penitentiary in 1938 for the crime of altering the amount of a check. He served 8 months.
In November 1938, the Presleys moved to Memphis, where both parents worked various jobs. From September 1949 to January 1953, they lived in an apartment at the Lauderdale Courts — the family’s longest stay at a single address until the 1957 move to Graceland, the mansion Elvis bought with $102,500 of the money he had earned from his unexpected rock ‘n’ roll stardom.
Vernon and Gladys lived at Graceland with Elvis, along with some other relatives. Tragically, Gladys — whom Elvis called “my best girl” — died on Aug. 14, 1958, at Methodist Hospital, while recovering from a heart attack she suffered while Elvis was undergoing basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, after being drafted into the U.S. Army. She was only 46 — yet she lived four years longer than would her son. Elvis was 42 when he died on Aug. 16, 1977.
Elvis received “emergency leave” from the Army to visit his mother in the hospital and attend his mother’s funeral. Charles Portis, the future author of the novel “True Grit,” who at the time was a reporter with The Commercial Appeal, covered one of Elvis’ visits to Methodist. “There were tears in his eyes as he spoke of his mother in a subdued manner,” Portis wrote, adding that the singer “reflected moodily on the family’s pre-Cadillac days.” Presley gave Portis this quote: “I like to do what I can for my folks. We didn’t have nothin’ before, nothin’ but a hard way to go.”
At his mother’s funeral on Aug. 15, Elvis was distraught. “Goodby, Darling. Goodby! — I love you so much!” cried Elvis, according to the Memphis Press-Scimitar. “I lived my whole life just for you.” Vernon Presley also was in tears, the newspaper reported.
At Graceland, Vernon acted as a sort of business manager, working out of an office behind Graceland that is now part of the tour. He traveled with Elvis and visited movie sets, and could sometimes be found at the gates of Graceland, greeting fans. Many Graceland-related checks and transactions in the Elvis Presley archives are signed by Vernon.
In 1960, Vernon Presley married Davada “Dee” Stanley, a Tennessee woman who was married to a sergeant in the Army when she met Vernon in Friedberg, Germany, where her husband was stationed alongside Elvis. Elvis did not approve of the marriage. Dee and Vernon separated in 1974 and were formally divorced in 1977, a few months after Elvis’ death. Dee died in 2013 at 88, in Nashville.
After his son’s death, Vernon Presley remained at Graceland, helping to manage the estate and the Presley business affairs. In October 1977, Vernon moved the bodies of Elvis and Gladys from Forest Hill Cemetery to the “Meditation Garden” at Graceland, after three “confused and unsuccessful” would-be grave robbers tried to steal Elvis’ corpse from the Forest Hill mausoleum. However, the marble tombstone that Elvis had designed for Gladys was not placed at her grave until 2018. The stone, which identifies Gladys Presley as the “Sunshine of Our Home,” had been in storage at Graceland since the bodies were removed from Forest Hill.
Vernon Presley died at Baptist Hospital (where his son also was pronounced dead) on June 26, 1979. He was 64. He had been hospitalized almost a month, after suffering a heart attack. He was buried at Graceland, where he now is among six Presley family members. Graceland opened to the public three years later, in 1982.
