If This House Could Talk...

By Bonnie Heidinger

Kelly Dallas Keller of Jonesboro and Ann Moore of Anna received prizes from PAST for correctly identifying the house featured in the June 7 Gazette “House Talk” article.
The Anna house is located at 506 W. Spring and is currently owned by Richard and Mary Ann Stout. Mrs. Stout is the granddaughter of John M. Coffman, an Anna brick mason, who built the house circa 1914.

The post office changed the house numbers from 504 to 506 W. Spring some time ago.
John M. Coffman (1870-1960) used his brick laying skills not only on his own house, but also on other houses on Spring Street, the Presbyterian and Catholic Churches, the Davie School, and other structures. James Marquis Coffman (1854-1925), John’s father, was also a skilled mason. James and his wife Margaret came to Union County in 1895.

In 1906 John Coffman married Kate Pelley, who was from “one of the first Catholic families in Anna,” according to the book, Around Town with Jane Brown. Kate Coffman (1880-1973), in addition to raising seven children, was a skilled weaver; and her granddaughters, Susan Bigler and Mary Ann Stout, have treasured memories of sitting on their grandmother’s lap while she made pretty rag rugs at her loom in the basement. The girls were allowed to thread the loom and run the shuttle through.

Kate Pelley Coffman’s brother, John Pelley, rose from his job as baggage boy at the Anna depot to President of the American Association of Railroads. The new brick Anna Depot built by the Illinois Central Railroad in 1923 was later renamed the John Pelley Depot in his honor.
The three Coffman daughters, Elizabeth, Ann, and Marian, never married. Marian lived in the house all her life until her death in 1989. Ann was 4 when she moved into the new house where she remained until 2006 when she passed away at the age of 96. Among her many pursuits, Ann Coffman, an SIU graduate, was appointed office manager of the Anna Wood Heel Plant in 1943 when the factory was making boot collars for army combat boots.
When Elizabeth Coffman retired from her second teaching career, she returned from California to the family home. To accommodate her belongings and treasures from her travels, many additions to the house were necessary. A large family room with a fireplace (the fourth in the house) was built onto the kitchen on the northeastern side of the house. The front porch was completely enclosed with brick eliminating a feature Mary Ann Stout remembers fondly. She and her Grandmother Kate would sit on the partially open front porch in their metal chairs (one large, one small) and rock while waiting for the mail to drop through the slot. After her return to Anna, Elizabeth ran the Head Start pre-school program. She died in 1999 at the age of 92.

The 4 Coffman sons John Thomas, James, and Roy and Ray (the twins) married and left the home.

Most people driving on West Spring have noticed the distinctive features built in the yard by John Coffman. A natural stone gazebo with a fireplace, a curvy concrete-lined pool for fish, an arched stone bridge over the pool, and a concrete birdbath decorate the lawn west of the brick garage. Flowers, ferns, and other plantings always have abounded outside the home, adding to its stately appearance.

PAST salutes the Coffman family who have built and will continue to preserve a structural treasure of Union County.