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Losing her home as a child during the Depression greatly affected Adeen McNiel.
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Adeen McNiel felt the harsh realities of the Great Depression as a child when her family could no longer make the payments on their farm. From that day, McNiel learned how to make the most of what she had.

“She watched her daddy’s farm get repossessed. They weren’t big-time farmers so they had to move,” her son Jack Wayne McNiel said. “She said when she had a house no one was ever going to repossess her home.”

McNiel died July 14 from lung cancer. She was 91.

When she was in her teens and her father died of typhoid, McNiel was forced to leave school and take a job at a hotel in Centerville to support her family.


Adeen Savanah Raines McNiel

Born: May 18, 1924, Leon County

Died: July 14, 2015, San Marcos

Preceded by: Husband U.L. McNiel; son Van Henry McNiel; parents Willie Henry and Eva Lena Raines.

Survived by: Sons Anthony Lawrence McNiel and daughter-in-law Kathy, Uriah L. McNiel III and daughter-in-law Melody, and Jack Wayne McNiel and daughter-in-law Kathy; 10 grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren

Services: Funeral 11:30 a.m. today at Alamo Funeral Home followed by interment at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery


Knowing the lack of job prospects their hometown offered, McNiel moved in with her older sister and took a job at San Antonio State Hospital, where she met her future husband, U.L. McNiel, in 1940.

The couple married in 1941. McNiel became a stay-at-home mom to four rambunctious boys when her husband was drafted into the military in 1944. The family relocated to Alabama.

“She was a good mom, very strong-willed and a disciplinarian. She had to be with four big boys who were full of beans,” her son said.

After her husband’s discharge, the family returned to San Antonio and McNiel rejoined the workforce when necessary. While working for Electrolux, McNeil came across a sales challenge she could not turn down: Sell 100 vacuums in a month to win a car.

“Dad took a month off of work to help mom sell vacuums. By the end of the month they had sold 103 vacuums,” Jack Wayne McNiel said. “It was a compact Rambler American. My brothers and I all learned how to drive in it.”

Eventually the McNiels had their own 15-acre farm where she taught her sons the value of hard work through raising livestock and making dairy products.

“I’ve seen her haul hay with my brothers. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. There was very little that she wouldn’t do,” her son said.“We were all raised with a strong work ethic. We were taught if you want to achieve something, then you have to work hard for it.”

When her husband took medical retirement from Southern Pacific Railroad, she spent her time volunteering in Trinity Baptist Church’s ukulele band with her husband and serving in the Order of the Eastern Star. U.L. McNiel died in 2006 after 65 years of marriage.
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