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## The Manahan Years: Life in Charlottesville
The final fifteen years of Anna Anderson’s life were spent in Charlottesville, Virginia, following her December 1968 marriage to John Eacott Manahan. Understanding this period is important for several reasons, including the medical history that would produce the biological material used in the 1994 DNA testing.
Manahan was a retired academic associated with the University of Virginia — variously described as a retired professor, lecturer, and genealogy enthusiast. He had become interested in the Anderson case through his genealogical research and had corresponded with her before her arrival in the United States. His belief in her identity as Anastasia was unwavering and apparently sincere.
The marriage provided Anderson with practical stability she had not consistently had in the decades since her claim became public. Charlottesville offered a quieter setting than the circles of European aristocracy and Russian émigré politics she had moved through for forty years. The couple lived together in Charlottesville, though their domestic situation was described by observers as unconventional — animals accumulated in the house, conditions were at times described as chaotic, and Manahan’s eccentricity was itself the subject of occasional local comment.
In 1979, Anderson underwent intestinal surgery at a local hospital. This was the surgery from which the tissue sample was retained in paraffin wax — the sample that would later be used for DNA testing. She was approximately 77 or 78 at the time, if one accepts the 1901 birth year that would follow from the Anastasia claim, or approximately 83, if the Franziska Schanzkowska birth year of approximately 1896 is correct. The surgery was not trivial, and the recovery period was significant.