The McKinney ancestors of William
Andrew came to South Carolina from Rutherford County,
North Carolina. His great, great, great grandfather John
McKinney was active in the Revolutionary War. The
family had come to North Carolina from Ireland or
Scotland by way of Pennsylvania. The complete story of his
McKinney family can be seen at (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~teaster/).
My father, William Andrew (Bill) McKinney, was born in
Glendale, SC on February 11, 1911. At that time, his
family was living on 16 Street. He went to Glendale
Elementary School through the 6th grade and quit.
Later his family moved from the mill village to a farm
near the intersection of Hillcrest Road and Sloans Grove
Road. During his teenage years, Bill spent a great deal of
time at the farm of his grandfather, Jack McKinney. His,
Grandpa Jack, was a tough man but Bill seemed to thrive on
working for him. All of his life, he really wanted to be a
farmer and he took pleasure in having a garden and raising
animals, especially dogs. But, by the time Bill was an
adult, it was very hard to make a living as a farmer, so
he became a carpenter. His Grandpa Jack, his father,
Andrew (Pop), and several of his brothers were also
carpenters. He was taught the carpentry trade by Hyde
Brown of Ben Avon. Bill became a master carpenter and took
great pride in his work. Even when he needed the work, he
would quit a job that was doing inferior work or using
cheap unsafe materials.
Bill became an adult during the heart of the depression.
Work was hard to come by. The mill at Glendale and others
around Spartanburg “curtailed” and began to work only a
few days each week. Bill and his brother, Robert (Bob),
heard that the textile mills in Columbus, Georgia had work
and were actually hiring.
(William (Bill) McKinney and Hilda
Olive McKinney in the early 1930's.)
In about 1930, Bill and Bob left Glendale and traveled
to Columbus to see what they could find. Both did find
work in the Bibb City Mill for awhile but both also found
something far more important. Both found wives. Bill met
and married Hilda Olive and Bob met and married Mureil
O’Daniel. In 1935, after the birth of their daughter,
Barbara Ann (Bobbie), Bill brought Hilda and Bobbie back
to Spartanburg County. Shortly after that, he hired a taxi
to make the round trip of almost 600 miles to bring his
mother-in-law Mary Willie Olive to Spartanburg. She lived
with Bill and Hilda until her death in 1972.
My mother was born in Cottonwood, Alabama. She was
the daughter of Mary Willie Hawkins Olive and William
Edward Olive. By the time she was three, her father
had died and four of her siblings had died. This left her
mother, her brother Edward and her to make up their
family. Shortly after her dad died they moved to Florida
where they lived for a short time with her grandfather
Hawkins. Then they moved to Columbus, Georgia where her
mother worked in the Bibb Mill.
She quit school in the sixth grade and worked at a book
binding company and in the mill. My parents were married
in June of 1932. My sister, Barbara Ann (Bobbie) was
born in Columbus in November of 1934. Two and a half years
later, I was born in May of 1937. By that time they had
set up house, on East Cleveland Street in Spartanburg.
It was across the street from Wofford College. My
grandparents, Andrew and Addie, lived next door.
In 1937, Bill’s, Grandpa Jack, became seriously ill with
cancer and sent for Bill to come live with him and take
care of him. Bill and Hilda and Barbara and me (Mary Lee),
and Granny Olive came to Glendale and lived with Grandpa
Jack until his death in 1940.
World War II brought major changes to the lives of
almost everyone in this country, including Bill and Hilda.
Bill’s brothers Bob, Roy, David and Sam all joined the
service. Bill tried to join but was turned down for health
reasons. Not being able to join the service was a major
disappointment to him for the rest of his life. It was
decided by the brothers that Bill should take care of
their parents, Andrew and Addie, and the families the
brothers left at home.
He decided to help with the war effort with his skill as a
carpenter. He went to work for a huge, secret project in
Tennessee. He came home many weekends to check on the
people in his care. Nobody, including those who built it,
knew what the plant was for. In August, 1945, it became
public knowledge what had been done at the plant at Oak
Ridge. They had been making radioactive material to be
used in the bombs that were dropped on Japan and that
finally ended the War.
After the War, Roy, Bill, David, Sam and their father,
Andrew, got involved with the Carpenter’s Union in
Spartanburg. Andrew became the full time president of the
Union and Bill and Roy became union organizers. His
biggest project was at the Savannah, River Nuclear Project
in Aiken, SC. At the end of his career, Bill worked at
Clement Lumber Company in Spartanburg doing custom
carpentry work.
My Mom, Hilda, was a quiet woman in appearance. She
could sew most anything she could find a pattern
for. She made almost all of mine and Bobbie’s
clothes. Canning was a constant summer job.
Daddy always had a huge garden of every kind of
vegetable. We had a cow most of the time and she
churned the butter and made buttermilk. All her
cooking was from ‘scratch’ and delicious. Unfortunately,
it was not an inherited trait for me, Bobbie got that one.
She was a member of the Glendale Baptist Church. She
enjoyed church and her Sunday School Class, it was her
only social outlet.
(Hilda and Bill about 1984.)
Caring for people defined my Dad’s personality as well
as his rougher side. His mother told him before she died
that it was his job to take care of her two unmarried
sisters, Bess and Ada Corn. He took this as a very serious
duty and cared for them until their death. He was not the
oldest in the family but he took on that responsibility
for watching over his sister and brothers. He was a
furious protector of my mother and sister and me.
He was considered a “dangerous man” by some and not
many cared to cross him. He liked to drink and, in
his early years, to fight. He told of going
into a bar and announcing “I can whip any man here.” In
his older years, he still had the scars on his back where
someone had broken a chair over his back in just such an
encounter.
Although Glendale saw him as a tough man, no girl ever had
a more caring and loving Daddy. I dogged his steps from
the time I could walk. He taught me to shoot a shotgun,
love the smell of wood and the outdoors, to respect my
elders and all people, to love animals and to bite my
bottom lip when I worked. A trait I have never been
able to break. At his funeral, many people told me of the
caring help he had extended to them. We never knew of
these acts of kindness during his life.
Bill became ill early in 1986 with lung cancer and died
later that year at the age of 75.
After my Daddy’s death in 1976, my Mom, Hilda, went to
stay a Maranatha Home and then moved to Skyland Retirement
home in east Spartanburg. In 2000, I moved her to
Summerville so I could take care of her. She died on
February 24, 2005 of complications with congestive heart
failure.
Bill and Hilda had two daughters. Barbara Ann McKinney Dunagin and
Mary Lee McKinney Teaster.
Story Contributed by Mary Lee
McKinney Teaster
