The Two Annas

This is the story of two women both named Anna. I am not related to either one of them, but each played a big part in my family history. My mom’s paternal grandparents are Rev. William Byus Smith and Mary Melissia Webb-Smith. Mom’s maternal grandparents are Rev. Oscar Green Hunter and Mildred Sarah Bishop-Hunter. Before William and Mary, there was William and Anna. Before there was Oscar and Mildred, there was Oscar and Anna.

I’ll start with Oscar Hunter’s Anna, as I knew more about her from the beginning of my genealogy research.

Anna E. May 

Anna Elizabeth May, born 8-Dec-1902 to William May and Lucy Tomlinson-May in Kentucky. She married Oscar Green Hunter, 24-Oct-1919 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was sixteen and he was twenty. I’m lucky enough to have a little bit of insight on Oscar and Anna when they dated; there are many letters that Oscar wrote her during his service in World War I. Anna’s letters however are not to be found. Nearly every letter he would start off with “Dear Little Friend.” I have been able to gather from his responses to her that she was working in a shop of sorts and that she was close with his family that also lived in Cincinnati. I was able to get their marriage application, listing her as a hat maker. Oscar was a listed as a clerk.

One day after their first anniversary, Anna gave birth to a daughter, Dorothy Ruth Hunter. 1920 census lists only Oscar and Anna, as Dorothy was not born when it was taken. 

Oscar and Anna with Dorothy 

Then the little Hunter family suffered a terrible blow. Anna died of tuberculosis on 4-Feb-1922, she was only nineteen. Oscar was a twenty-two-year-old widower and Dorothy sixteen-month-old baby without a mother. Her obituary said, “She was the beloved wife of O. G. Hunter” Oscar’s dairy listed 4-Feb-1922 simply as “A dark day.”

Anna Hunter 

Years later, in 1935, Oscar married Miss Mildred Bishop, but that is a story for another time…..

Now to William’s Anna.  This is what I knew when I started. William a.k.a. Bill was nineteen and Anna Omega Balser who was thirty-four, a little unusual for the time. She died at the age of fifty on 4-Nov-1940 in Elwood, Indiana. Bill and Anna had no children and Her parents were Henry and Stella Balser. I had a lot of work to do. 

The only known photo of Annie, with her is her husband Bill

It took a while and my big find was found by mistake. Bill’s mother Eliza Olive a.k.a. Lida Bright-Smith’s sister Clara’s 2^nd husband was Rev. Jasper Newton a.k.a. Nod Alderman. Clara and Nod had two children and while looking for birth records for them I found birth records for Nod’s son (from a previous marriage) Richard’s children, their mother was listed as Annie Balser. Sure enough it was Anna Omega Balser.  Now Anna’s story was getting interesting. 

I found that Anna Omega Balser married John Richard Alderman on 19-Jul-1904 she was fourteen and he was a twenty-five-year-old divorced man. As I said earlier, Anna and Richard had children, they had three, all of which died young. The eldest child’s name is unknown at this time. The obituary serves as the only record of this child’s life.

The following month their daughter Pansy May, died on 4-Jul-1906, she wasn’t even seven months old. Years had gone by and Anna and Richard had a son, Arthur William, born 12-Feb-1920 in Elwood, Indiana. He died 31-Oct-1921.

I saw from newspaper articles there were a hand full of times that Anna had filed for divorce; it wasn’t always easy for a woman to get a divorce back then. She filed for the last time in Jul-1924, coming to the judge with a black eye, and claiming among other charges that he would not support her. The divorce was granted 17-Oct-1924, and upon her request her name was changed back to Balser.

A month later Anna married William Byus Smith on 19-Nov-1924, Anna died fifteen days shy of sixteen-years of marriage.