Wallace, Cornelia Ellis Snively, 1939- .

Cornelia Wallace was born 1939 January 28 to Charles and Ruby Ellis in the City of Elba, in Coffee County, Alabama. The family later moved to Cullman after the death of Sarah Folsom, wife of Ruby's brother James, to help raise his two daughters. Upon "Big Jim" Folsom's election to the Governor's seat in 1946, the Ellis family moved into the Governor's mansion in Montgomery, with Ruby acting as official hostess.

It was during the first Folsom gubernatorial campaign, that the young Cornelia, at the age of six, first became involved in politics by folding and passing out campaign literature for her uncle Jim.

Cornelia attended Sidney Lanier High School and Huntingdon College in Montgomery. She later transferred to Rollins College in Orlando, Florida where she studied music and voice. At age nineteen Cornelia made the first professional recordings of her own country-western song compositions. She subsequently travelled with a country music troupe headed by Roy Acuff, performing in the eastern part of the United States, Hawaii, and Australia.

After a year in New York, studying voice and acting, Cornelia became a professional water skier and model at Cypress Gardens in Florida. It was there that she met her first husband, John Snivley, III. The marriage lasted seven years and produced two sons, Jim and Josh.

Cornelia returned to Montgomery with the two boys after the ending of the marriage. In January of 1971 she married Governor George Wallace, during which time she campaigned with him in the ill-fated 1972 presidential election, and again in 1976. The marriage ended in 1978 after Wallace's third gubernatorial term.