Minden · Ruston · New Orleans · Biloxi · Longview · Bossier City
Gwen has never been one to stand still.
Born in Minden, Louisiana, on September 19, 1932, Gwen built a life shaped by curiosity, family, church, and friendships that have endured for decades. She married Billy McKellar on August 8, 1954, and together they raised Bill, Diane, and Jim.
What feels most distinctly Gwen is her willingness to try something new. After her children were grown, she returned to school and became a preschool teacher. In her seventies, she was still saying yes. That included running two Cajun Cup 10Ks with her sister Jamie.
This website is a beginning, not a finished portrait. If you know Gwen, help the archive grow with a story, correction, or family photograph.
The center of the story
Gwen stands at the center of two closely connected families, the Almonds and the McKellars. This site brings together records and memories to show the people and places that shaped her.
Gwendolyn “Gwen” Almond McKellar was the oldest child of James Turner Almond Sr. and Lalia Smith Almond. Her younger siblings were Jamie Almond Gaither, born in Minden in 1935, and James Turner Almond Jr., born in Minden in 1939. Over the years, Gwen has stayed close to both siblings and their families. [2]
The sections that follow trace how her Minden upbringing carried into college, marriage, motherhood, friendship, service, teaching, and the generations that came next.
Explicitly stated in a contemporary record, institutional source, publication, or race result.
Preserved through firsthand family knowledge and identified here as such when an outside record has not yet been found.
Multiple records align, but a primary document has not yet been located.
Plausible and worth pursuing, but not presented here as fact.
Before she left Minden
Newspaper reports trace Gwen’s school years back to 1947. That year, she made the A honor roll and won second prize with Jody Harper in a PTA poster contest. In January 1948, she appeared in newspaper coverage of girls’ basketball at Minden High. That April, Gwen and Peggy Holland joined other student journalists at a press clinic at Baylor University, representing the school newspaper, The Monitor. Another 1949 report connects Gwen to reporting or typing work for the paper. [54]
The 1950 Minden High Grig gives a lively picture of Gwen at seventeen. She was the yearbook’s editor-in-chief and took part in Girls State, the Louisiana High School Press Association, the 1948 homecoming court, pep squad, choir, Future Homemakers, and Future Business Leaders of America. Taken together, the records show habits that would last: learning, organizing, joining in, bringing people together, and saying yes to the work. [29]
Louisiana Tech
In 1950, Gwen left Minden for Louisiana Polytechnic Institute in Ruston, now Louisiana Tech University. Three consecutive Lagniappe yearbooks trace her from her freshman year in 1951 through her junior year in 1953 as a Home Economics major and a member of Phi Mu. By 1952, she was secretary of the Campus Women’s Council and active in the Wesley Foundation. In 1953, she served as Phi Mu’s secretary, represented the sorority on the Panhellenic Council, belonged to Blue Jackets, and worked as a reporter for the Home Economics Club. [51] [52] [53]
College gave Gwen a larger stage, but the pattern was already familiar. As she had at Minden High, she joined in, accepted responsibility, and often ended up helping organize things. Ruston was also where family history says she met Billy McKellar, who attended Louisiana Tech before entering Tulane Medical School. Their college years led quickly into an engagement and their marriage in August 1954. [1] [9]
Her own chapters
Marriage
The yearbooks document Gwen’s college life, but not where she met Billy. Family history places their meeting at Louisiana Tech, and a July 1954 index records their engagement announcement. Newspapers then record a July 27 marriage-license notice and several pre-wedding parties. Together, the records support the family’s August 8 wedding date, although no printed announcement or civil record stating that date has yet been found. [1] [9] [54]
Strong inferenceLifelong friendship
An April 1948 newspaper report places Gwen and Peggy Holland together at a school press clinic at Baylor University, the earliest record yet found of their friendship. Peggy’s later life took her through four states and Iran before she became an elementary teacher. Through those changes, Gwen, Peggy, and Genie Carson stayed close into their nineties, using texts and regular phone calls. The record now traces Gwen and Peggy’s friendship for more than 75 years. [14] [54]
DocumentedWhen Billy began his private pediatric practice in Longview, Gwen joined the Junior League of Longview. The membership is preserved through family history, though a digitized roster has not yet been located.
Family-confirmedAfter the family moved to Bossier City in 1966, Gwen became deeply involved at First United Methodist Church and volunteered at Bossier General Hospital. Both gave her lasting ways to care for people and build friendships.
Family-confirmedA second chapter
After Bill, Diane, and Jim were grown, Gwen returned to school, earned the certification needed to teach preschool, and spent years working with young children at First United Methodist Church of Bossier City. The work drew naturally on the patience, faith, and service that had long shaped her life.
Family-confirmedA glimpse of Gwen herself
At 73, Gwen ran the 2005 Cajun Cup 10K alongside her younger sister Jamie, who finished two places ahead. Three years later, they returned. Gwen, then 76, crossed the finish line in 1:30:19.9, and Jamie followed just four-tenths of a second later. The results preserve more than race times. They show two sisters still moving through life together, almost stride for stride. [6] [7]
Relationships at a glance
Gwen is the point where the Almond, Smith, McKellar, and Barnett lines meet.
Vander, 1884–1962
Harris Community near Homer, Louisiana
1868–1960 · 1873–1952
1851–1907 · 1853–1923
1910–1991 · 1911–1987
1894–1972 · 1897–1991
married Sandy Spohn
married Tim Wheelahan
partner Mark Weber
A life in motion
Nine milestones give the story structure. The fuller portraits appear elsewhere on the page.
Born in Minden, Louisiana.
DocumentedSchool records culminate in Gwen editing the Grig.
DocumentedThree yearbooks document Home Economics, Phi Mu, and campus leadership.
DocumentedNewspaper notices trace the weeks before Gwen and Billy’s family-confirmed August 8 wedding.
Date family-confirmedThe family moves through Shreveport, Biloxi, New Orleans, and Longview.
DocumentedThe family settles in Bossier City.
DocumentedGwen earns preschool certification and begins teaching.
Family-confirmedThe sisters finish both races, crossing nearly together in 2008.
DocumentedFamily and friends keep adding to the story.
The Minden household
Their records outline the home Gwen came from: rooted in Minden, engaged in community life, and closely connected to Louisiana Tech.
June 30, 1935 – January 17, 2015
Jamie and Gwen shared more than the same Minden childhood. At Minden High, Jamie sang in the Girls’ Glee Club and worked on The Monitor while Gwen edited the Grig. Both later attended Louisiana Tech and joined Phi Mu, giving the sisters another connection beyond home and school. [13] [29] [51]
Jamie married Robert Edward “Bobby” Gaither and settled in Lafayette. In 1965, she returned to college as an education sophomore at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. She and Bobby raised two sons, Kevin and Michael “Mike” Gaither. [2] [38]
Like Gwen, Jamie built her adult life around family, church, learning, and old friendships. She was a homemaker, played tennis and bridge, and served at Asbury United Methodist Church. The sisters’ long closeness is also visible in the two Cajun Cup 10Ks they ran together in 2005 and 2008. Jamie died in Lafayette in 2015 and was buried at Fountain Memorial Cemetery. [2] [6] [7]
Turner shared Gwen’s Methodist upbringing in Minden. In 1951, he was named among the young people received into the fellowship of First Methodist Church, the same church tradition that remained important in Gwen’s life. [58]
His future wife, Yvonne Simmons, also grew up in Minden and later attended Louisiana Tech. Local school columns followed their courtship, reporting in 1956 that Yvonne and Turner were “on the steady list.” [54]
At Louisiana Tech, Turner studied accounting and served as president of the Student Senate. After graduating in 1961, he began a thirty-nine-year career with the firm that became Ernst & Young. He rose to partner and worked in New Orleans, Tulsa, Jakarta, and Fort Worth before retiring in 2000. [10]
Turner and Yvonne raised two sons, Brian and Brad Almond. They later bought the Almond family farm as a second home, and Turner became a certified tree-farm owner. Their stewardship kept the property in the family and preserved a living link to Gwen’s Minden childhood. [10]
Gwen and Billy
They learned early how to make a home while life kept moving.
Gwen was twenty-one and Billy was twenty-three when they married on August 8, 1954. They had met at Louisiana Tech, according to family history, and their wedding came just before Billy graduated from Tulane Medical School. His training and career explain where they went. Gwen’s life explains how those places became homes. [1] [9]
During their wedding week, friends and relatives gathered for a series of parties in Minden. At an August 3 tea given by Peggy Holland and her mother, Gwen received a silver serving tray engraved with her initials. [54]
The training years
Billy’s training took the family through four cities. Each move advanced his career and asked Gwen to begin again while they built a marriage and raised their children. The sequence is documented, but the exact dates still need to be pinned down. [1] [56]
Billy completed his internship at Confederate Memorial Hospital as the newly married couple began their life together.
Two years of Air Force service took them to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Billy trained in pediatrics at Charity Hospital while Gwen made another home for their growing family.
Billy entered private pediatric practice, and Gwen became involved in the Junior League of Longview.
A home in Bossier City
In 1966, Gwen and Billy moved to Bossier City, where Billy became chief of pediatrics at Barksdale Air Force Base. It was the end of the constant moving and the beginning of the place they would call home.
They raised Bill, Diane, and Jim there and became part of First United Methodist Church, where Billy was a member for more than fifty years and served on church committees. Gwen built her own life of service through the church, Bossier General Hospital, and later the church preschool. Their home became a gathering place for a family that grew to include grandchildren and great-grandchildren. [1]
Away from work, they ran, played ping-pong and bridge, followed the Dallas Cowboys, spent time with friends, and took an annual trip to the beach. The cities of their early marriage kept changing. The beach trip did not. [1] [24]
The doctor people remembered
Billy was a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and led pediatrics at Barksdale Air Force Base for twenty-five years. A younger doctor remembered him as one of the kindest and most honorable physicians he had known, and as a model of how medicine should be practiced. [1] [24] [30]
One mother recalled that her children liked Billy so much they invented ailments just to visit him. Patients trusted him, younger doctors learned from him, and his peers respected both his judgment and his gentle nature. [24]
Billy’s humor could relax a tense committee room. Another doctor admitted that Billy’s own appointments often ran long because the two of them could always find thousands of things to discuss. [24]
A second career
After retiring from Barksdale, Billy spent another twenty-six years as a pediatric consultant for Louisiana Disability Determination Services. He reviewed medical evidence and helped decide whether children qualified for disability assistance.
His colleagues remembered his patience, willingness to teach, sense of humor, and determination to reach the right decision in every case. The word that appeared again and again in their memories was integrity. He continued working until 2017, retiring at eighty-six. [24] [31]
Doc at home
To his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, Billy was “Doc.” He was gentle, funny, unassuming, and firmly on the side of the good guys. He loved running, ping-pong, the Cowboys, and the family’s beach trips. Medicine was part of who he was, and so was being surrounded by family. [1] [24]
Billy died peacefully at home on April 7, 2020. He and Gwen had been married for sixty-five years. Behind that number were medical school, military service, four early homes, three children, decades in Bossier City, church, friends, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and all those trips to the beach. [1] [24]
Gwen’s family
Three children, six grandchildren, one granddog, and eight great-grandchildren.
married Sandy Spohn · July 29, 1978
married Tim Wheelahan · December 6, 1986
partner Mark Weber · January 28, 1998
Bill · Leadership and service
Bill arrived at Northwestern State from Parkway High as a 6-foot-1 basketball guard. He played for the Demons and was later selected for Blue Key, a national honor fraternity recognizing academic standing, leadership, and campus involvement. That instinct for leadership continued in Bossier City. In 2025, he chaired the Leadership Board at First United Methodist Church, carrying forward the church service that had long been part of Gwen and Billy’s lives. [39] [40] [41] [15]
Diane · Service and teaching
Diane’s years at Northwestern State University were full: State Fair Queen, Wesley Foundation, Bat Girls, Purple Jackets, student government, and, in 1979, Miss NSU, the university’s highest student honor. She carried that energy into adult life as a physical therapist and an instructor at LSU Health Sciences Center, combining care for patients with teaching the people who would follow her into the profession. [42] [43] [44]
Jim · Higher education
Jim spent 35 years working in higher education, culminating in his role as CEO and general manager of Harvard Student Agencies, which he assumed in 2007. There, he led the world’s largest student-run company and gave students real authority while teaching them to read a balance sheet, run a meeting, recover from mistakes, and grow into responsibility. [45] [46]
A family photograph of grandchildren brings another generation together with Gwen and Billy.
Anna Kate · Camille · James Garrett · GiGi · Maggie · Alice · Parks · Whit
Gwen’s granddaughter
Kristen graduated from Airline High School in 2001 after three years with the Blue Angels Danceline. She was an honor-roll student, served in several school organizations, and went on to Louisiana Tech. During her freshman year, Kristen was killed in a hit-and-run crash caused by a drunk driver. Her friends later created a scholarship in her name for members of Airline’s Blue Angels, carrying forward the dance, generosity, and friendship for which they remembered her. [28]
Webster Parish roots
“Minden Family” became shorthand for more than a place. Meals and games in Gwen’s childhood home, reunions at Toledo Bend and “the farm,” beach trips, and cousins visiting one another around the world kept the family connected across generations. [27]
01
Gwen’s paternal grandparents were Vander and Maggie Almond. Vander was born May 26, 1884, died October 9, 1962, and is recorded at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden. His known children included Mary G. Almond Garrett, Ernest Almond, and Turner Almond Sr. Mary’s obituary independently identifies Gwendolyn McKellar, Jamie Gaither, and Turner Almond Jr. as her niece, niece, and nephew. [54]
A 1937 newspaper report brings Vander’s work into view. Cooperating with the Soil Conservation Service, he described successfully growing vetch and said farmers first had to prevent erosion, then rebuild the soil. He planned additional cover crops. The following year, a community column placed the Vander Almond family in Antioch Baptist women’s projects for the Baptist Children’s Home. [54]
Transcribed Gilgal Church records also include Vander and other Almonds, among them Fate Almond. Fate’s obituary says he and Willie B. Almond raised nine children on a cotton farm in Webster Parish in the 1920s. The record does not prove how Fate and Vander were related or whether this was the family’s remembered “farm,” but it places an Almond farm in the right parish and era. [34]
02
Vander Almond Road still exists outside Minden. Nearby roads include Almond Circle, Almond Road, Henry Almond Road, and Joe Almond Lane. Fate and Willie B. Almond had a son named Joe, making him a plausible namesake for Joe Almond Lane, but no road ordinance has yet been found to prove it.
A 1979 report described the old Henry Almond home off Old Athens Road as about a century old when it burned. It establishes a long-standing Almond homestead in the area, but does not prove who gave Henry Almond Road its name. [54]
Was the later family’s remembered “farm” the same place as Fate’s documented cotton farm, Vander’s property interests, or another Almond property? And were Fate and Vander brothers? These records narrow the questions without answering them.
Names carried forward
Names and shared institutions connect Gwen’s story to the generations before and after her.
Gwen’s 1951–53 yearbook records give this family thread its documented beginning. The 1955 Lagniappe then lists Jamie Carolyn Almond in Secretarial Science and Phi Mu. Turner Jr. later led the Student Senate, and Gwen’s granddaughter Kristen also enrolled at Tech. Across generations, the campus became part of the family story. [13] [51] [52] [53]
Through Billy, Gwen joined a McKellar line in which a variation of the name appears across five generations: John Dugal McKellar; his son John Dougal McKellar; Billy Dougal McKellar; his son William Dougal McKellar; and William’s son James Matthew Dougal McKellar. [8]
George Garrett McKellar, born in 1892, and William Narl McKellar were brothers. Family history says Jim’s middle name, Garrett, was chosen in honor of Billy’s Uncle Doc. The name continues with Gwen’s great-grandson James Garrett Descant. [8]
In 2023, Brad Almond, Brian Almond, Diane Wheelahan, William McKellar, and James McKellar established the Dr. Robert Kevin Gaither ’96 Graduate Fellowship at Texas A&M. Each gave $5,000 toward a $25,000 endowment supporting graduate study in English or history. Brad described them as five cousins from Kevin’s maternal family in Minden. Their gift also shows how close Gwen and Turner Jr.’s children remained to Jamie’s family. [5]
An archive designed to grow
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Sources and research notes
This is a research edition, not a claim that every question is settled. Sources are listed so later discoveries can correct or deepen the story.
James Turner Almond Sr. and Jr. often appear simply as Turner Almond. Age, place, education, spouse, and context must be checked before assigning a record to either man. This site treats the 1962 councilman as Turner Sr. because he was about 51 and established in Minden, but it leaves the Willis Lumber position unresolved because either man is plausible.
The 1951, 1952, and 1953 Lagniappe volumes document Gwen’s college attendance, Phi Mu membership, Home Economics major, and several campus roles. A physical 1954 volume is listed in a Louisiana library collection, but Gwen’s senior entry has not yet been reviewed. [51] [52] [53] [55]
Contemporary newspapers place Gwen and Peggy together by April 1948 and document the 1954 marriage license and pre-wedding celebrations. The August 8 wedding date remains family-confirmed until a printed announcement or civil record is located. [54]
The available Cajun Cup results for 2006, 2007, and 2009–12 were checked without finding Gwen or Jamie. That does not rule out other events, but the documented shared Cajun Cup appearances remain 2005 and 2008. [35]
Gwen’s Junior League work, hospital volunteering, preschool certification, and teaching remain family-confirmed while organization records are pursued. Her meeting Billy at Louisiana Tech also remains a strong inference rather than a documented event.