02/24/1975
Name: Ancil William Miers
Born: 25 Nov 1903, Knoxville, Marion, Iowa
Marriage: 1. Alta Wilbur – Aug 30, 1924 Knoxville, Iowa
Marriage: 2. Wilma Lucile Ivers – Jul 7, 1934 Omaha, Nebraska
Died: 24 May 1975, St. Lukes Hospital, Cedar Rapids,Iowa aged 71
Buried: 27 May 1975, Graceland Cemetery, Knoxville, Iowa
Ancil was probably part German, English and Irish. German from his Miers
side (and maybe Dutch from his dad' side, the Creagers), English from his
dad's Johnston side (Hannah [Rusling] Johnston was born in England), and
Irish from Ancil's mother's Etcher side of the family. (see reference 9
below) .
Ancil was named Ancil for Ancil B. Johnston, his grandmother's brother,
his dad's mother's brother. Ancil B. Johnston was the brother of Hannah
Fowler Johnston who married Isaac Freeman Miers. Hannah and Isaac were
Ancil Miers' grandparents.
Ancil's middle name, William, was named for his Grandpa Smith, William
Seth Smith.
Ancil and Alta had no children and divorced Aug., 1933.
Ancil and Wilma took a hot dusty bus to Omaha, Nebraska, where they
married, had a brief honeymoon and danced on their wedding night.
They
lived in Knoxville, Iowa, having met when both worked at the Veterans
Administration Hospital in Knoxville. Wilma was a stenographer taking
dictation from the doctors and Ancil was a barber for the inmates. This
hospital was a recouperation and treatment hospital for shell shocked
victims of World War I. Men who had been in the war had been so
frightened that they lost mental ability to function. Some were worse
than others, could not feed themselves, and lost control of their
functions. More were cured in the Knoxville hospital than at any other
hospital of that type, but not all were able to be released. Ancil's and
Wilma's daughter, Lucille, was one of the young people in town who
entertained the patients with vocal music groups from school and church.
Ancil graduated from Knoxville High School, Knoxville, Iowa. He had a
barber shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma and worked as a barber for the Veteran's
Administration Hospital in Knoxville, Iowa. After he and Wilma married,
he took a correspondence course in radio repair and worked in a local
repair shop. He and the other employee in that shop started a
partnership doing house and business wiring and repairing anything
electrical from radios to home appliances.
After that, he started his
own business located in the basement of his house in Knoxville. Later,
he took a job in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working for the United States Navy
Department doing electrical inspection of the military radios and
electrical products of Collins Radio Company, later named Rockwell,
International. Ancil and his family moved to 108 27th Street Drive,
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the fall of 1951.
He retired from the government
with a combined 31 years of service from the VA hospital and the Navy.
Between living in Knoxville and finding a home in Cedar Rapids, he roomed
at the WMCA. But for one month of that time, he took his family to stay
in a cabin at a park in the country near Cedar Rapids called Palisades.
Ancil had had a heart attack at age 52 and had a cancer on his kidney
which necessitated the kidney being removed. He died primarily of high
blood pressure and hypertension.
Ancil and Wilma are both buried in Knoxville, Graceland Cemetry, Marion
Co., Iowa, Section 9 (North part of old cemetery), Lot 2. Wilma belonged
to the Christian Church and Ancil was baptized in the Christian Church.