Eugene, William Thomas, and Peyton Tooke Anderson and their seven sisters are claimed as sons and daughters of Pulaski County. The three men are publishing the Macon Telegraph and the Macon News, while their sisters have married and are, with three exceptions, living; in Macon.
In 1878 Christopher Cohen Anderson and his wife, Laura Tooke Anderson, decided that schooling advantages were too poor at Houston Factory, and their children should get a better showing in life. Mr. Anderson had gone to the Factory from Hayneville to look after the office work of the big enterprise that Joseph Tooke had developed there before the War Between the States. Farming as a sideline was also a part of the program. But Hawkinsville held a lure for Mr. Anderson, who had studied law and thought he would like to practice.
The sisters are: Mrs. Leila Anderson Key, with G. S. C. W. at Milledgeville; Marie Louise (Mrs. Harry A. Gibson), Macon; Alma (Mrs. Orren Massey), Macon; Julia Mason (Mrs. W. N. Northrop), Minneapolis, Minn.; Myrta (Mrs. Walter Massey), Macon; Louise, Macon; and Katherine, Washington, D. C.
But at Hawkinsville the family circle continued to increase, money was scarce, panics were constant, and the three boys went to work in the printing office of the Hawkinsville Dispatch under George P. Woods. Eugene, the eldest, was only fourteen, and he was the first one apprenticed to learn the printing trade. His salary was fixed at seven dollars a month for the first year, eight the next year, and possibly ten dollars beyond that. “That’s all right,” said father Anderson. “I grew up with the idea that a college education was the sine qua non in life, but this is a practical age, and I want my boys to have a trade.” The other boys were soon at work in the same office; and the schooling sought in Hawkinsville seemed to be still out of reach. They carried their dinner and supper to the office and worked early and late. To encourage them, Mr. Woods agreed to pay them “by the piece,” meaning for what they did instead of by the month; and the question of wages settled itself. They made a great deal more than the apprentice pay.
They had studied in the Institute of Mark Hodge, under such teachers as Mr. Hodge’s sister, “Miss Lizzie,” who afterwards married Dr. A. A. Smith; William A. Jelks, and others; and later they attended a private school conducted by Miss Julia Mason; and still later, Mrs. Nora Parsons took them in charge in her school. Later on, Eugene and William T. found employment on The Telegraph at Macon, and they pooled their funds and sent Peyton to the private school conducted by Major E. H. Ezell at Byron.
Eugene attended Mercer in the daytime, and later became a teacher of business subjects in the school of practical arts at that institution, and in 1907 became the proprietor of the Georgia-Alabama Business College, which he operated for twenty-five years. William T. bought The Telegraph’s controlling interests, and associated Peyton with him. After the depression of 1929 and the early ’30s Eugene closed out the Georgia-Alabama Business College and went back to work with The Telegraph in the editorial department. Peyton became postmaster at Macon in addition to his duties with the newspapers. He and W. T. had, in addition to The Telegraph, purchased the Macon Evening News, and operated both papers in the same building on Cherry Street.
Eugene Anderson married Nina Warren of Savannah, and from the marriage were three daughters: Martha Munford, Eugenia Manning, and Leila Warren. After the death of Nina Warren in 1916, Eugene married in 1918 Anne Speer Burr, second daughter of Emory Speer, of Macon.