William McAnsh and Family

11 April, 2005

William McAnsh is Anna's step-brother, my great-uncle. He was born a few months after Anna, and they were melded as a family when John McAnsh, widower, married Jessie Glennie the year after these children were born.

William was 10 when they came to the US. I hit that blank spot where I don't know where they have gone, but in 1930, the census has William, and his wife Callie Wheeler, living in Atlanta Georgia with their many children. They owned their home at 1235 what looks like Niles Ave, in Atlanta, Fulton, Ga. For those interested in looking it up on Ancestry.com, it is under "Mcnach", one of those wonderful peculiarities of transcription.

It shows William living with his wife of 11 years, and their 7 children (4 daughters, 3 sons): Catherine, Joan, Norman, Mandabell (Mink), Carolyn, William Jr, and James. Callie and all the children are listed as having been born in Georgia.

I understand that they actually lived there for a while, but I have not yet found them on the 1920 census. Perhaps I'm looking under the wrong misspelling!

Bill (William Gardner McAnsh) moved from Canada to New York, then to Atlanta, Georgia, where he married Callie Jane Wheeler, a native of north Georgia, in 1916. They had 9 children, 5 sons and 4 daughters. My Aunt "Mink" (Mandabell) was one of the daughters, born in 1924, the same year as my mother. Most of William's children continued to live in Georgia. William was a railway worker. During the depression work got harder to come by, and at one point, the family farmed their property for 3 years while there was no work at all, and lived off what they could produce until there was work again on the railways. Aunt Mink remembers Atlanta as being relatively rural at the time. Mink remembers fer father as being very strict, but very loving. It was Callie who represented the "soft" side in the family.

This is a picture of several of the McAnsh siblings. Left to right, they are: William, Annie, Bella, Maggie. The picture came from Aunt Mink who said it was taken at Anna's house in Steubenville.

Aunt Mink remembered going up to Steubenville, Ohio at one point, to visit Anna and Carl. Catherine and Mink stayed for a bit, Catherine for a week, Mink for 2. Here's a photo.

My mother remembers going to Georgia at one point in the 1930s to visit her Uncle Bill. Mink remembers her Aunt Maggie and Uncle Alex coming to visit about 1936. At the age of 58 (1951), William took a holiday, going up to Montreal with Maggie and Alex. Callie was not feeling well, and decided to stay at home. During that trip, Maggie and Alex missed William at breakfast, and he was found to have died in his sleep of heart failure.

The body took 5 days to return to Georgia by train. During that time, Callie was stoical, and didn't allow herself much grieving afterwards. 2 months later, she had a stroke, and the Doctor said that this was not uncommon where a spouse dies, and grief is suppressed. She fully recovered. William's wife Callie died in 1980 at the age of 83.

William's oldest son, Norman, was serving in the Air Force, and stationed at Bikini Atoll. At the age of 39 he was diagnosed as having "black cancer" and was treated for about a year in Walter Reid Hospital in Wash, DC, and when it became apparent treatment would not be effective, he went back to Atlanta, where he died a year later.

Aunt Mink only remembers meeting her Aunts Maggie, Anna, and Belle. In the case of Mary Ann, this is because of her early death. In the case of Aunt Kate (Catherine McAnsh), it was said she was the "black sheep" of the family. Aunt Mink knew nothing of her whereabouts, or how she attained this status. Anna was in Ocalla, Florida in 1917, the year after William and Callie got together. Annie was apparently working as a waitress when she met Carl Summerville, whose parents lived in Ocalla. Anna died in 1962 in Ohio. Anna's story is elsewhere. The last time Mink can remember meeting any of Anna's family was in 1944, when she caught up with Hazel and her daughter Donna. The family seems to have been relatively close up until the mid 40s.

Mink married, had 6 children and moved to Florida. I am indebted to her for much information on our family, and for some of the photos of my mother and other relatives. Mink is her name, in the sense that it is the name she is norrmally known by. Mink and my mother are the same age, and both have 6 children. Here is Mink's photo.