Distant Cousins: Levi Calvin McKee Thornton Family

A Captain during the Civil War, in 66^th Illinois Infantry, Union Army, Levi Thornton (b. Dec. 15, 1825, d. Mar. 9, 1907) returned to Illinois and married Anna Maria Cox (b. Jan 5, 1841, d. Jan. 14, 1918). They had three children: Mary Thornton (b. abt. 1873, d. Feb. 2, 1935), who married William Thomas Kirkpatrick and had no issue; Herbert A. Thornton (b. abt. 1878), who died before 1920 in a railway accident; and Anna Leland Thornton (b. July 19, 1876, d. July 24, 1960).

Anna Thornton married Neil Genis Grubb who later became a prominent building contractor in Oklahoma. They had three children: Maurice Thornton Grubb, Mary Elinor Grubb, and Cornelius Howard Grubb, who later inverted his name to Howard Cornelius. Maurice became prominent in the oil and gas industry. He married Gladys Shipton. His daughter, Jacqueline, and her descendants married into other oil and gas families: Ankenmans, Cannons, and Underwoods. Of note, Jacqueline's daughter, Maurie Ankenman, married Eugene Philip Cannon Jr., a Houston businessman who served as President of the Houston Zoo.

Mary Elinor Grubb married Bradford Jennings Williams, a prominent judge in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He left a rather mixed legacy by dismissing lawsuits against insurers by African-Americans whose businesses and homes were burned by an angry white mob during the Tulsa Race Riots. Mary and Bradford’s son and grandson would become lawyers too and carry on the family name. Bradford Jennings Williams IV was recently born in New York City, where his father is a V.P. at Goldman Sachs and head of the North American Institutional Distribution for Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Strategies, a $15-billion investment fund for ultra-high-net-worth investors. In 1999 Bradford Jennings III received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Owen School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Mary and Bradford’s daughter, Anna Leland Williams, married John Bryant Bender, a renowned scholar of 18^th-Century studies at Stanford University. He is director of the Stanford Humanities Center.

Howard Cornelius Grubb married Julia Mier. They had a daughter, Julia Leland Grubb (“Lili”), who married Erik C Anderson. Erik C Anderson II was born in 1969, Newton, IA. Howard took after his father and became a prominent contractor in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He developed large-scale subdivision projects, including Lortondale, in which he matched modern design with affordable, community friendly living.

Levi Calvin McKee Thornton, son of Levi Thornton (s/o James and Jennet Montgomery Thornton) and Sarah Thornton (d/0 Theophilus and Sallie Miller Thornton).