HISTORY

Jeff Rankin: Undertaker’s wife had interesting life

Jeff Rankin
The Rankin File
Jeff Rankin

One of the frustrations of researching 19th-century life in western Illinois is that married women were generally regarded as wives and not as individuals. Even their obituaries often failed to disclose their first names. They were Mrs. (husband’s last name) and they were only recognized in light of how they complemented their spouses.

Occasionally, when women had long been widowed and reached an advanced age, their obituaries would actually chronicle their personal life experiences. Such was the case with Anna Belle Blair White, who died Dec. 12, 1955, at age 97, after having fallen in her home and suffering a hip fracture three weeks earlier.

Anna Blair was born in 1858 in Galena, Illinois, the county seat of Jo Daviess County and at the time one of the state’s leading cities. Her brother was a colorful Mississippi River steamboat captain, and her father, Andrew, served under Gen. Ulysses Grant during the Civil War. One of Anna’s earliest memories new was of Grant’s triumphant return to his Galena home following the war.

On August 19, 1865, 6-year-old Anna was one of about 10,000 citizens who greeted the victorious Union commander and watched as city leaders presented him with the deed to an elegant Italianate brick mansion, constructed five years earlier for the Galena city clerk. The day featured a parade, decorated arches from which young ladies threw bouquets and waved American flags. The night ended with a spectacular display of fireworks.

As an adult, Anna visited the home several times and enjoyed viewing a painting of Gen. Grant which featured several Galena residents whom she knew as a child.

As a young woman, Anna left Galena and entered Lenox College, a Presbyterian institution in Hopkinton, Iowa. While in that town, she met Robert Emmet White, and they were married in 1881. The young couple resided at the White family homestead near LeClaire, Iowa, where she gave birth to three daughters and two sons.

In 1894, White graduated from the Illinois School of Embalming, and the couple moved to Monmouth, where they established a residence at 208 W. 2nd Ave.

Robert operated a funeral home in the Harding Building (now occupied by Market Alley Wines). In 1898, Robert purchased the furniture store of William H. Rankin at 209 S. Main St., which had operated there for 37 years, and changed the name to White Furniture & Undertaking.

Anna White, who lived in Monmouth until 1955, witnessed Grant’s triumphal homecoming to Galena in 1865.

In 1896, Anna was elected president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the YMCA. In 1900, the Whites moved to a new home at 210 N. 1st St., where Anna gave birth to another daughter and another son shortly after the turn of the century.

Anna’s husband added a fine phaeton to his funeral equipment in 1899 — an elegant rubber-tired vehicle with plate glass windows. In 1916, he would purchase one of Monmouth’s first motor hearses. The exterior was finished in two-toned silver gray. The interior featured solid quarter-sawed mahogany, with separate compartments for carrying flowers and funeral equipment.

White moved his undertaking business to North Main about 1910, on the second floor of what is now Sav-A-Lot grocery, but continued to operate his furniture store on South Main. In 1930., he sold the store to Earl St. Clair, but it would continue to operate as White Furniture until 1960, when it was rented to Sears Roebuck as a catalog store. It would later become the home of Jill’s Hallmark, before being razed in the 1990s.

Shortly after moving to Main Street, Anna’s husband built a new funeral chapel directly across from what is now the grocery store. He then became a partner with John Lugg, who purchased the funeral business in 1923.

During 61 years as a Monmouth resident, Anna White was active in several community and civic organizations--especially Second United Presbyterian Church. Her husband, Robert, died in 1942, and was buried in Monmouth Cemetery. When Anna died, she left five living children, 15 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. She was buried next to her husband.

Jeff Rankin serves as editor and historian for Monmouth College. A lifelong Monmouth resident, he has been researching local history for more than three decades.