Anna McNeill Whistler, born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on September 27, 1804, was the fifth child of a phy-sician from Edinburgh, Scotland, Daniel McNeill and his second wife, the former Martha Kingsley. Dr. McNeill owned a plantation in Bladen County, where Anna and the other children spent their summers. Through her brother William, a cadet at West Point, she met her future husband, George Whistler, also a West Point cadet. Anna had been close friends with George Whistler’s first wife, Mary. She had spent a great deal of time with Mary, George and their three children, and upon Mary’s death she grew closer to George. They were married in 1831. They moved first to New Jersey and then to Lowell, Massachusetts, where George went to work for the railroad as an engineer. Soon the Whistler household added two boys: James Abbott and his younger brother Willie McNeill. Two additional children did not survive. Anna and the children followed George to Russia where he was invited by the czar to be the chief engineer on a railroad to be built from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Living in Russia for six years, while managing a household where only the cook spoke English, Anna’s dedication to her family and efficiency at running a large household made the years, while sometimes a struggle, a successful adventure for the young family — until George Whistler died in 1849. Grief-stricken, Anna put on the mourning clothes that she would wear for the rest of her life and returned to America with the two boys, James and Willie. James was always the rebellious son. He made an attempt to fol-low family tradition and entered West Point as a cadet at large in 1851, only to be dismissed in 1854 for deficiencies in chemistry. He has often been quoted as saying, “Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major-general.” He was, however, at the top of his class in drawing. He worked for a time as a draughtsman at the US Coast and Geodetic survey, but he soon resigned. He departed for England and the continent to study art in September 1855. When Whistler left the US and sailed to London, he stayed with his sister Deborah and her family for about a month. He then left England for Paris and the Latin Quarter. Whistler spent most of the next years in Paris, with some visits to England. By the end of the 1850s he was based in London. He lived in Paris again several years later. Once her boys left home, Anna spent most of the rest of her life both in America and England visiting or living with her sons or her stepdaughter, Deborah. Anna’s dedication to her family was unwavering. In 1860, Willie had married a woman from a Georgia family with strong Confederate sympathies and he joined the Confederate army as a surgeon. When he was stationed in Richmond, Virginia, during the war, Anna ran the blockade to visit him and was with him when his wife fell ill and died. Staying with Willie as he served in the Confederate army was not a sensible 22 WBM may 2014 choice, so she boarded a blockade-running ship again to return to James in London. In February 1865, Willie Whistler was carrying dispatches through the lines to New York. He sailed from New York to Liverpool and when peace was declared he decided not to return to America. He settled in London where he established a med-ical practice. For the last 16 years of her life, Anna was fortunate to have her boys and her stepdaughter nearby where she could spend time with them and, in turn, they could care for her when she was in declin-ing health. She died in Hastings, England in 1881. We are fortunate to get a glimpse into Anna’s thoughts and inter-ests through surviving historical documents, including her diary from 1850 archived in the Library of Congress. Additionally, many books, letters and manuscripts from her estate were bequeathed to the University of Glasgow by James Whistler’s sister-in-law. Among these documents is her handwritten manuscript of recipes, which has PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE HARRIS & EWING COLLECTION, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LC-DIG-HEC-27654 Anna McNeill Whistler circa 1850s. COURTESY OF MARGARET F. MacDONALD, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY from
Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014
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