Family:John McWilliams and Nancy Unknown (1)

Capt. John Gordon McWilliams was one of the partners in the banking firm of McWilliams, McCutcheon, & Deming. This was, I believe, the first banking establishment in Shreveport (possibly Shreve Town at that point).The bank later became Commercial National Bank of Shreveport. he and his wife, Nancy Elizabeth Lucy McWilliams, are buried in the southeast corner of Oakland Cemetery in downtown Shreveport. The original headstones have fallen, but someone, I do not know who, erected a massive monument new to the Captain at the gravesite sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. His wife's grave still remains in ruins. Their daughter, Alice Bell McWilliams, was the center of a scandal. Sadly, the facts are shrouded in the past. She married a prominent physician, left him and ran away with another man claiming the husband was a drug addict, and took up residence in New Orleans. Her husband went to New Orleans, where he shot the other fellow in broad daylight in public, then returned to his table at a restaurant. The case was quite celebrat d; it made the pages of the New York Times several times. Details are sketchy but at some point Alice filed for divorce on the grounds that her husband was a convict, he was pardoned by the governor, and at some point he had her committed to an insane asylum (I believe one in New York). I don't know the order in which those things happened. I ran across a description of her as a tall, handsome brunette. I also found a vague reference that she eventually married a Dauer. It is regrettable that her side of the story did not survive the passing years. She sounds like she may have been a most unusual woman for her era.