Gelane Saylor was my great grandmother. One of the three men to whom she was married was Dave Hall, my great-grandfather. I have visited her gravesite in Harlan County, Kentucky, and took a photo of her tombstone. On the tombstone, her name is spelled Gelane, with no "i" though my Mom says it was pronounced Gelanie. At times, Gelane helped her son Grant (one of Dave's sons) raise his children--my mother and her siblings, as Mom's mother died during childbirth while Mom and her surviving siblings were quite young.

Gelane/Gelanie must have been quite a woman, raising her own children from three marriages and then helping with grandchildren.

In fact, I have always loved the name so much that I named my daughter Gelanie (I did insert an "i" to make the name easier to pronounce). My understanding is that Gelane is a Cherokee name, meaning winter dawn. Does anyone have any information to verify its origin or whether or not she had Cherokee heritage?