GILILLAND, Anna May

The Verde Independent, Cottonwood, AZ Tuesday, January 11, 2011 Anna May (McDonald) Gililland (1924-2011) Anna May (McDonald) Gililland, 86, formerly of Camp Verde died January 9, 2011 in California. Born Anna May McDonald on February 10, 1924 in Camp Verde, she married Edward Desmond Gililland on July 5, 1942. Anna is survived by her 10 children, 15 grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, some great-great grandchild and two sisters. Selflessly Anna lived her life in the service of others, taking in teenage children in her younger years, later in life caring for terminally ill friends, leaving her home to care for her own mother until the end of her life and then nursing her husband through the end of his life. She adopted 3 of her great-grandchildren at age 73 to keep them from being adopted out separately. All of this, she did never asking for anything in but love return. Anna saw many changes in her life, from the time of hauling water in buckets from the well, and using scrub boards to wash clothes through the time of computers and the internet. In her youth Anna worked with her father in a sawmill she said that she loved the work and smell of the fresh cut wood. As a child she would go out in the pasture with her cousins and they would catch one special cow and ride it like a horse. She lived with her parents in the barracks of what is now the Fort Verde museum. She had a pet mouse that one day ran up her mother's dress and made her laugh out loud in spite of the punishment she knew was in store for her. Summers they spent living in a tent with a dirt floor that they had to keep swept to keep the dust down. She told us of a story where she drove an old wood truck up on top of a sawdust pile that she and her playmates had been burrowing through and it sank and she had to dig it out with a shovel. She was quite the character and will is sorely missed. A Funeral service will be held Saturday, January 15 in the Camp Verde Chapel of the Westcott Funeral Home at 11:30 a.m. Burial will follow in Clear Creek Cemetery. An online guestbook is available at www.westcottfuneralhome.com Information provided by survivors.