Bl2 Anna Pope Bland

Born: 26 June 1908 in Shelbyville, Kentucky On July 7, 1934, Eustace Granger Hester and Anna Pope Bland were married in Shelbyville, Ky. She was 5' 2" or 157.5 cm tall as was her sister Jane, while both their parents were 5' 6" tall = 168 cm. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes. She had a tendency to gain weight but managed to keep a diet fairly well every 6 months or so and always got back to size. Children: He1-1 Thomas Eugene Hester, b. Oct. 23, 1937 He1-2 William Griffth Hester, He1-3 George Nicholas Hester, He1-4 Jane Ann Hester, She died Feb. 15, 1970, in Saginaw, Michigan about 4 weeks after having an operation on a brain tumor, presumably caused by the radiation field from the electric power lines that passed over the house. An aunt and a cousin also developed brain tumors at young ages. So a genetic tendency to develop such tumors is possible. This would be supported by the very young death of the maternal grandfather, US Congressman Patrick Henry Pope, if it were due to a brain tumor, but a Pope genealogy originally published about 1900 and recently found on the Internet attributes the low number of survivng Popes in Kentucky at the end of the 19th century to marriages to consumptive wives without actually saying that his mother and the early Thruston family in general died of consumption. As the disease is contagious and was very common at the time is seems to be the more likely cause of the early deaths in this branch of the family than congenital brain cancer. Although the deaths of an aunt and a first cousin and now the granddaughter of a first cousin from brain cancer do speak for a congenital factor increasing the probability of such a development.	Anna Pope Bland at 5 months Picture taken December 3, 1908
Pope or Bland aunts an cousin left and center, Anna Pope Bland (or Levicy Jane Bland) 2nd from right Matilda Prather Bland nee Nicholas far right. Picture taken about 1921	Anna Pope Bland about 1921
Katherine Prather Nicholas and Anna Pope Bland, about 1921/2 Bland Ave. Shelbyville, Ky.	Anna Pope Bland about 1921
23 Apr 1922, Levicy Jane Bland right with ukelelee	Levicy Jane Bland left, friends center, Anna Pope Bland right about 1925
left Anna Pope Bland, friends center,right Levicy Jane Bland 1925
After having attended a women's junior college near Atlanta Georgia together with two of her school friends for two years, Anna Pope Bland continued studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington Ky. and graduated with a B.A. in education with majors in home economics and history in 1932. She met her husband, Eustace, during her first year in Lexington. The following year he started medical school at the University of Louisville, and she taught school for two years before her marriage shortly after he finished medical school. Anna Pope (Bland) Hester was and active member of the First Presbyterian Church and the Saginaw chapters of the Civitan Auxiliary and the Daughters of the American Revolution. In later years she baked bread for the church bazar, as her yeast bread was particularly aromatic it sold out quickly. So every year she doubled the number of loaves she baked, but to no avail as it still kept selling out quickly. For the Bazar in 1969 she baked 64 loaves reching the limit of what she could manage with her kitchen and refridgerator (the dough had to be leavened in the refridgerator for 24 hours to get the right taste and aroma).	Picture take at her graduation from Science Hill June 1925/6
Her work for the Civitan Auxiliary was equally selfless actively participating in many functions raising money at bazars to help the needy people of Saginaw. She had a young colored women named Betty who came to help with the house work who she liked talking to. But she scepticle of the possibility of the African Americans ever being able to raise themselves out of poverty. She quoted her mother's maid - an old woman at that time who before the Civil War had been maid to the master's daughter sleeping in the latter's room and otherwise well treated - who did not want to live in the part of Shelbyville where the negroes were living saying there were "good darkies and bad darkies" and she did not want to have anything to do with the bad ones. Well, in the mean time many negroes have nonetheless been able to raise their lot, if not enough yet. She was also the member of a women's bridgeclub of about 16 members that met continuously every two to four weeks for over fifteen years with practically no change of members to the memory of her son, William. Anna Pope Bland was by nature a Southern lady and very considerate of others, even tempered and quite diplomatic, even in the family, deferring many questions to her husband's decision. She was always willing to grant her children the wide freedom necessary for personal development but quick to stem any misbehavior going beyond the line. Never would she venture any opinion or any advice that might intrude in other's personal affairs, an attitude that a son or daughter only really learns to appreciate when confronted by a person of the opposite nature. In 1952 her son, William, passed a news stand and caught a a glimps of a picture out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at it more closely while asking himself, "Where did that old picture of Mom come from?" Well, it was not Mom although it had a strong resemblance to the her in the 8 mm movies of her taken about 14 years earlier, which her son had only seen many years before. It was not until he got into the genealogy of his grandmother that he understood, whence the resemblance came.
about 1928	remote but multiple cousin at about the same age.
Matilda Prather Nicholas and husband Dr. Thomas Eugene Bland and children Anna Pope Bland and Levicy Jane Bland about 1919 Anna Pope and Dr. Eustace Granger Hester in Hittville about 1936 23 Oct 1937 Anna Pope, Eustace, William and Thomas Hester in front of the Hester house in Hittville, Ky. 1943

Bl2 Anna Pope Bland

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