By Valerie Sliker
Courtesy Wagener Monthly

Wagener native Ann Widener was re-elected to the town council in November of 2015 and began her second term this past January.  Ann comes from a family of civil service as a daughter of former mayor and councilman Lawrence McLaurin and former town clerk Iris McLaurin.  Ann is married to Philip Widener and has 2 sons and 4 grandchildren.  She works in town at the Wagener Vision Clinic.

Ann's maternal roots lie deep in Wagener.  Ann's grandmother grew up on the 300-acre Cofer Plantation just west of town on Highway 39.  Family legend has it that Sherman's troops stopped at the Cofer Plantation on Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864 and that Sherman himself held Ann's grandmother's sister Dora "Dodie" on his lap.  He asked her where they hid the silverware and food, but the family had coached her not to reveal the hidden treasures.  This became a famous family story about the "first time Aunt Dodie told a lie."

The Cofer girls moved into Wagener.  Dodie moved into what is now the home of Orine Casey while Ann's grandmother moved into a home her husband, Oscar Jones, built for her in 1912.  Long-time Wagener residents might remember Oscar Jones, a painter and employee at Tyler Brothers, who created a buzz in town when he constructed a Sears and Roebuck house on Louie Street in which Ann's son, Chris, currently resides over 100 years after construction.