Little is known about William Mack before he came to America, only that he was an Irish sailor. I suspect that his surname was changed when he came to the U.S. from Mc(?????) to just plain Mack. The story below was written by my mother and I do have a copy of the diary she speaks of. I believe that his two younger children were buried at Holy Ghost Cemetery, but as far as I know, the headstones have not been located.


William Mack, my great great grandfather, lost his wife and two of his young children to some kind of epidemic in 1864. He was left with a young son, my great grandfather, to care for. He joined the Union Army shortly after. He was paid to go in another man's place (probably a wealthy man) as was a common practice at the time. He stayed and fought and survived until the very end of the war where records show he desserted in New Orleans. Many of the soldiers simply went home after the fighting ended so were technically desserters.

With no one to care for his son, he went to one of the wealthy families in Carroll Co. Mo. and asked them to care for my young grandfather until he got back from the war. These kind people made him like one of the family until the war ended and his father returned. Darlene O'Neil obtained a copy of a diary written by one of the children of that family, a little girl writing as an elderly lady her memories of the "old Irishman" (he would have been 37 years old) leaving his little boy to go to war. She told about the pranks she and her brother would play and the fun they had with little James Mack. He grew up to marry Mollie Keynon, was also widowed early in life and left to raise his two children, my great Uncle Bill Mack and my grandmother Mary "Rosella" Mack Carter.

Contributed by Cheryl O'Neil