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Subject: Did You Know Wilfred "W. G." Shannon?
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:43:19 EST

I thought I'd throw this out and see what comes up. I have been
researching the life and times of my grandfather Wilfred "W. G." Shannon, who was born
in Merrill, Michigan. He married Caroline "Musa" Warner and they had seven
children. They lived in Saginaw after 1931 on Cooper Street, South Washington,
North Michigan, and a few others. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge, a
local historian, a Saginaw County Road Surveyor, Oil Lease entrepreneur, and at
one time he owned the largest collection of hobnail glass and carnival glass
east of the Rockies. WG was also a local politico and a crony of the late
Senator John Schuch, and a bit of a raconteur. He fancied himself as a demolition
expert and a couple of stories circulating about him were when sometime in
the late 1930s he tried to raise a sunken barge from the Saginaw River using
dynamite and blew out the windows of the nearby telephone company and another
time he was going to lay a brick smokestack from an old building in between two
stakes, but as luck would have it the explosion rained bricks and dust over
half of downtown Saginaw. I'm going to try taking out an ad in the local papers
to see if anyone has any information, quips, stories, or groaning
recollections of him but I thought I'd try this first. Anything at all is welcome. Thank
you!!

Sincerely,

Kevin O'Brien
Laguna Hills, CA

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