NOTE: In 1981, Arlu, one of Neta June’s Aunts, wrote an original manuscript from which the following is taken. Mom’s cousin, Patsy Rogers, transcribed the manuscript circa 1996 to share with family. In 2011, Larry received the main text from his Aunt Darlyne (Neta June’s sister)along with Grandma McCann’s story and other ancestry documentation.
Great Grandpa McCann (Andrew) was an Irishman, very blond and blue eyed. He is thought to be an immigrant from Ireland. His wife was 1/8 Indian from some Louisiana tribe (Eudora). When the government began repaying the Indians for their land and returning some, her husband wouldn’t let her take it because he didn’t want his wife to have more land and money than he did. She looked Indian, with long black hair in braids, and snappy black eyes, as well as being short and fat and dressing in Indian dress with lots of Indian jewelry.
The couple had three sons, Willie Ray, Jim, and Ira McCann. There were also two or three half brothers, as one or the other had been married before.
Willie Ray was our grandpa. He looked a lot like his mother. He was not a very tall man and he had a brown complexion and snappy black eyes. He was a workaholic and was very restless when he was away from his grocery store. He kept the store open from 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. weekdays and until 11:30 or 12:00 p.m. on Saturday night. He rarely took off a day to rest or go visiting.
One time he took sons Lavern and Harold and granddaughters Arlu, Bessie Faye and Lanetta on a trip to Carlsbad Caverns. That must have been a hard trip for them. They went in a Model A Ford truck over dirt roads in the heat of the summer and camped out along the river in the city of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Arlu was 10 years old at the time.
Grandpa was a good man, kind and freehearted. So much so, in fact, that he went broke in grocery stores about three times because he let so much out on credit and was too kind to try to collect from people he knew were having a hard time.
It was his mother who helped him get started in his first grocery store in Indian Territory, which was later called Manatou, Oklahoma (Manitou, Tillman County? https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=MA012). At other times he owned grocery stores in Loveland and Frederick, Oklahoma and in Levelland, Texas.
In Frederick he also bought and sold chickens by the rail car load.He would buy up a carload of chickens and then take the train to Chicago to sell them at the market. He rode in the boxcar with the chickens to feed and water them so they wouldn’t lose weight on the trip. At his store in Levelland he also bought cream and eggs and once a week took them to Wilson’s (or Swifts) Creamery in Lubbock, Texas.
Grandpa McCann had a keen sense of humor and was a happy person, constantly making up and singing little jingles on any subject, and doing a little jig at the same time. Except for being a soft touch, he was a good businessman and did most of his figuring on a pad, but not in the traditional way of working sums as he only had a third grade education. But he always had the correct answer, and probably sooner than anyone else with an education could get the answer. He kept his own books and inventory for the store and took care of his own banking business. His lack of formal schooling did not hinder him. He had to quit school at 9 years of age to work and help support his family.
He was so good to his store help that he told each new employee to eat all of anything they wanted at no charge. So the first week or so a lot of candy, cookies, soda pop and fruit was eaten. Then they begin to get sick of the sight of all that and there was no more eating up the profit. He also let his grandchildren have all the candy, cookies and fruit they wanted when they got to go town to his store.
Grandpa had one habit concerning employees that was a great burden on his wife (Sarah). He would hire extra help on Saturdays and he always told them to just go to his house for lunch and his wife would feed them. And boy, did she feed them! Hot rolls, steak, creamed potatoes, gravy, salad, peas, corn on the cob, angel food cake made from scratch with 12 egg whites, chocolate pie, caramel/pecan pie and iced tea with finely chipped ice (Harold liked to chip the ice and he chipped it so very fine—so good and cold on hot summer days). Meals fit for a king, and all this cooking going on in a tiny kitchen with no air-conditioning or fan and only an old wooden icebox. That was a side benefit no other grocery store employer offered, and Grandma Mac got mad as an old wet hen every Saturday, but she sure did feed the employees.
When grandpa got in his 60s he would sometimes have a blackout spell. He had had eight of the spells and just passed them off as ordinary fainting and would not go to a doctor. In November 1944 he had just opened the grocery store for business one morning and a young woman employee had arrived and was talking to him. He was about half way through a sentence when he stopped and she heard a thud. She looked around and he had fallen to the floor. He died immediately of a heart attack.
Shortly after he died and before the doctor and police got there, one of the men employees arrived. When he saw that Grandpa was dead he immediately took all the money out of the cash register and put it in the bankbag and wentstraight to the house and told Grandma that Grandpa had died. He gave her the bankbag of money and told her to put it away and not to say anything about it because the law would impound it and she wouldn’t have anything to live on until the will could be probated and that could take several months. She did just that. He said, otherwise she would not have had a dime to live on for months, as the law did impound the business, bank account, savings account, and everythingthey had. That employee was truly a friend indeed.
Grandpa Willie Ray McCann (born 17 December 1845, Missouri) died at his grocery store at 8:00 a.m., November 13, 1944 in Levelland, Texas at the age of 71. He is buried in the City of Levelland Cemetery. Grandma Sarah Katherine Elliott McCann was born 22 June 1880 in Texas and died 17 November 1971 in Levelland, Texas.
- Neta June McCann’s Relatives (Photos)
- Grandma McCann (Sarah Katheren Elliott) and Ancestors
- McCann Family Tree
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