William Madison Swanner (1874 - 1942)

"My grandfather is William Madison. He worked as a cemetery caretaker for many years. He did not like working indoors. I wish he could have lived longer so I could have known him better. I do know he was well-loved by any one who knew him. He died at sixty-four just as I turned nine and in my short life I loved him very much. Grandpop married Anna Elizabeth Hudnet and they had four children one of which was killed in an accident at the age of seventeen."

Letter written by Anna Mullaney Deal, 9 August 1999 to Nancy Thomas

ANNIE AND WILL SWANNER

Aunt Annie and Uncle Will lived in Graceland Park, a suburb just outside the city of Baltimore. The two Hudnet sisters, Annie and Sallie, had married Swanner cousins who had come to Baltimore from their homes in North Carolina. These dual ties made the families seem closer than usual, and we spent lots of time together. *NOTE: Uncle Will, I believe was born in Maryland.

Aunt Annie, while plump and jolly and round-faced, had an air of self-confidence that left no one in doubt as to who was in charge wherever she was. Her hair was snow-white (had been since her early thirties), and was worn in a short bob. She would often go to stay with relatives, wherever she was “needed” in times of sickness or sorrow or distress. She was active in church work and did volunteer service with tubercular patients at the Baltimore City Hospital. She had little formal education, but she seemed capable of handling any situation.

Uncle Will was a cheerful, wiry, home-spun man with a perpetual grin. He was loved by every child who knew him, and one of his favorite tricks to bring a smile to their faces was a series of mighty sneezes that came out sounding like “WHIS…KEY!!” It never failed. He looked and talked somewhat like Will Rogers.

He was caretaker of a Jewish cemetery. His family lived on the spacious grounds in a large brick house furnished to them by the cemetery officials. The house was connected by a second story over an archway to a section used for storage and a workshop on the ground floor and as a meeting place on the level. The entry through this archway slanted upward from the road to the higher ground of the cemetery property. It was always delightfully cool and breezy under this bricklined archway.

Fields of daisies and other wild flowers surrounded the outbuildings, which housed tractors and mowers and such, and the stable where a horse or two nodded placidly. We were allowed at times to ride these plodding animals. To us, city kids, our vacations in these country surroundings were pure Heaven.

When the weather grew hot, the family moved its daytime quarters to a “summer kitchen,” a one-story affair with a row of windows reaching all around the building. This generosity of windows insured a cool breezy interior. There was a space for preparing and cooking food, and a larger room where we ate or played games around the table.

Every Fourth of July, Uncle Will would put up large tents with the side flaps pulled up for air circulation, and the families gathered around the long tables set up inside for a Family Reunion. Aunt Annie’s two married children, Theodore Swanner and Mary Mullaney, came with all their children. The two unmarried children, Melvina and William, were great favorites with everyone. Along with our family, numerous other cousins usually attended.

This family get-together was a red-letter day for all of us. Each family brought picnic food, and Aunt Annie provided huge vats of cold drinks. The high-ligh of the afternoon was the soft ball game that went on for hours. The players were of all ages, children and grown-ups alike, and when one person tired, another took his place from the spectators. Firecrackers and “spit devils” were set off, and at dusk, sparklers and pinwheels and other fireworks were lighted. Everyone went home tired and happy.

Melvina was a slender, soft-spoken, sweet-natured girl who worked as a saleslady at Hochschild-Kohn’s Department Store in downtown Baltimore. She spent many hours each week doing church work, teaching and supervising Sunday School classes. Later, she married a co-worker in the church, Fred Most, who was also much loved by the children in the family.

William, the baby of the family, inherited his father’s sunny disposition. He delighted in teasing the girls and playing jokes on the aunts and uncles. He was the apple of his parents’ eyes and was given a car when he reached driving age. He and his cousin Isabelle Swanner were very close and enjoyed going places together. In fact, he had told both Isabelle and his parents that he would like to marry her, as she was the only girl he would ever love. This was impossible of course, as they were first cousins. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he was involved in an accident with his car. The family doctor wanted him to go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment of possible internal injuries. He begged his mother to let him recover at home, saying she had always taken care of them in all their illnesses. She gave in and kept him at home. He was confined to bed and seemed very weak. Isabelle and I would go at different times and spend several days with him – reading, talking, and just keeping him company. He never recovered. It was thought that he had an abscess that ruptured and caused his death from septicemia. His youth and character and lovability made us all feel his loss very keenly.

After Melvina and Fred Most were married, some of the upstairs rooms were converted into an apartment for them. When Uncle Will died from cancer of the stomach in 1942, Aunt Annie went to live with Melvina and Fred in a house a few streets over that we used to reach by cutting across the cemetery fields. The house was owned by Annie and Will and had formerly been occupied by her daughter Mary Mullaney and her family. Aunt Annie died there of a stroke in 1948.

Memories of Lillian Swanner Yargates