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Note: Social Security #: 320-32-6200
Will's father John Henry McNeal had a small farm and worked for other farmers, digging ditches, building fences, etc. "He liked hard work, had a real hard grip." When Will was little he cut bands on threshing machines. Helped thrash with horse powered threshing machines. Several teams went around the country side. Measured oats in half bushel basket and put in wagons. Will and his brother John worked one winter hauling logs. Will cooked and John took care of the horses under the bluff North of the highway. Will worked in Canada thrashing wheat, oats, barley and flax. Ate 5 meals a day - worked daylight to dark. Mostly Scots across the line in Manitoba - got $2.50 a day in Canada and $1.00 a day in the US. There was an Indian Reservation close by. Will's parents moved to town when Will married Bessie in December 1909. Will rented the farm and worked by the month. Will and Bessie bought a farm in Duncan Township, February 1920. They had to clear cockleburrs and seed it down. The second year there, Will ran for Road Commissioner and was elected. He was Road Commissioner for 20 years. 1974 Obituary: Funeral services for Will McNeal, 89, Rt. 3, Aledo, were held at 2 p.m. today, Wednesday, at the Olin Funeral Home in Joy. The Rev. Lyle Newell, pastor of Marston Baptist Church, officiated and burial was in Millersburg Cemetery. Mr. McNeal died at 8 p.m. Sunday, September 8 in his home following an extended illness. The son of John and Rose Anne Garner McNeal, he was born June 6, 1885, in Joy. His education was received in Joy schools and on December 8, 1909, he married Bessie Fuller in her home near Joy. She died in 1969. His entire life was spent in the Joy community, where he was a farmer and served as road commissioner for Duncan Township for 20 years. He was of Protestant faith. Surviving are two sons, Lee of Rt. 3, Aledo, and Burr of Moline; four grandchildren; two sisters, Mrs. Della Johnson and Mrs. Blanche Downer, both of Aledo, and a brother, John of Decatur. He was also preceded in death in addition to his wife by three sisters.
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