William "Bill" Wheeler Anderson, Jr.

William Wheeler Anderson, Jr., died on Father’s day, June 15, 2025, a few months after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Bill was born in Concord MA on October 22, 1947 to Mary R. Anderson and William Wheeler Anderson. 

Bill was a fourth-generation photographer and a lifetime scholar of Emerson, Thoreau, and later Timothy Leary. He was educated in the Concord public school systems with additional studies at Proctor Academy, Colby College (1971), The Museum School of Boston and Harvard Divinity School.

On Memorial Day of 1977 during the Concord Independent Battery’s cannon salute, Bill endured an accident that altered the trajectory of his life. In response, he dedicated his photographic profession to celebrate creativity. With extraordinary determination, he learned to use his teeth and mouth to load film, allowing him to continue working as a photographer. When not managing Anderson Photo, his father’s store in Concord, he organized poetry readings, musical events and gallery exhibitions. Bill forever walked with his camera, through forest and field. 

On February 22, 1983, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Bill underwent the final of many operations. He was the first person recorded to undergo a reconstructed hand transplant, during which his right hand was attached to his left arm. In preparation, he trained his body, and found a life long means to mitigate pain. Thereafter, he was known to build a bathroom, deconstruct a wall, and cook using his hook to make the most perfect lamb you had ever tasted over a fire at a home he designed in Rockland Maine, called the Temple of Light.

Bill loved where he was, and saw beauty wherever he went. He traveled the world by train, plane, pick-up truck, yellow lawn chair, boat, car, and most commonly by foot, always  documenting, with film, words or video what he saw: the landscape, architecture new and historic, the human condition, trees, and artists in action. As an artist first, he reveled in ideas, and was often ahead of his time. Bill carried on the work of his grandmother, photographer Esther Howe Anderson’s performing her slide presentations of Thoreau Country, which he then produced as a video, and ultimately, a book. He also endeavored to bring both Esther’s and his own art into hospitals to aid the healing process, well before such practice became commonplace. 

Bill loved to dance – with babies, friends and family – whether in the front hall of 52 Hubbard Street, at Honky Tonk events or hole in the wall music bars. By the end of his life, he had shed all but his letters, photographs and books. He spent his last few years in California, revisiting his vast photographic archive to print work for an exhibition. In that time, he was surrounded by animals, memories, family and friends. 

Amongst his handwritten papers was a mantra by which he lived, “You know what freedom is? Doing something yourself and not having somebody else tell you how to do it.” 

Bill lived between Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Washington and California. At times he lived with his beloved daughters and families, at times with friends, and at times alone. He was always astounded by the now of wherever he was.  Bill is survived by his two daughters and their families: Augusta Sparks (Dylan; Henry, Clementine and Grace) and Elizabeth (Aaron; Anderson and Cordelia Mae); as well as by his mother Mary, siblings Kenneth Anderson (Lynda), Kristin Emerson (Richard), and Elizabeth Monaghan (Richard), nieces and nephews, and his former wife Katharine Bell.

A series of photography exhibitions are being planned in Santa Cruz, Mid-Coast Maine, and Concord, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2026, there will be a celebration of Bill’s life in Concord.