Hill Family History
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| Dappie May and Lemuel Hill |
HISTORY OF THE FAMILY OF
Lemuel B. Hill & Dappie May Cornelius Hill
Compiled April 1971
by Hazel Hill Lister
The early Hill family were landowners in Tennessee who had slaves. Nothing is known about them prior to the time they moved to Kansas and homesteaded around Emporia. The children of that family were:
1. Winkfield Marion (oldest)
2. Will - Lived at Udal, KS. Children: Perry, Mattie (Watson) who lived in Winfield and Albert who lived at Rock, KS.
3. Caroline (Jenkins)
4. Serena, lived at Winfield, KS - died when a young woman.
5. Tom
Winkfield Marion Hill was born August 25, 1846; married Delilah Ann Pitzer at Bazaar, KS; died February 22, 1930.
Margaret Ellen Rodman (Pitzer) (Adams) (Bond) - mother of Delilah Ann Pitzer. Born in Milwaukee, WI; married to Joseph Pitzer, Joseph Adams and a Mr. Bond. Her father was a dairy farmer who had six daughters, but no sons. He needed a son to help on his dairy farm of 40 acres, so he went to New York to the “Foreign Settlement”, a place where immigrants who had no place to go were taken and provided for until they could be located. There Mr. Rodman found two young boys, about 10 and 12 years of age: Henry and Joseph Mann Pitzer, born in Berlin, Germany, orphaned at the dock while waiting passage for America when both parents became sick with some kind of mysterious ailment and died. The boys were allowed to stow away on the boat and arrived in America without anyone who knew them to look after them, so were taken to the “Foreign Settlement.” Mr. Rodman took Joseph Pitzer home with him to work for him at his dairy farm, provided for him but never adopted him. Nothing is known about how Henry Pitzer fared.
Joseph Pitzer married Margaret Ellen Rodman at Milwaukee, moved to Green Falls, Wisconsin and after Jane was born, moved to Iowa with an oxen team - no horses were available as the government had taken all horses for army use. Joseph Pitzer and Margaret Ellen Rodman had three children, then settled on Kansas territory near Cottonwood Falls.
Note: Margaret Ellen Rodman had a sister, Elizabeth, who married Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormons after the murder of Joseph Smith, the founder, who had settled first in Arkansas or Missouri. The Mormons were rejected by the people there because of their beliefs and especially their polygamy and moved to Salt Lake City. Elizabeth RodmanYoung was visiting her family one time when Margaret Ellen was also visiting, and had taken her grand daughter, Rena Kimberlin, with her. Elizabeth Young told Rena her relatives didn’t want her (Rena) to know who she was because they were ashamed of her marriage to Brigham Young. (Information above contributed by Rena Kimberlin).
Children born to Margaret Ellen Rodman and Joseph Pitzer & Joseph Adams, were:
1. Mann Pitzer
2. Jane Pitzer (Wiggins)
3. Delilah Ann Pitzer - Married Winkfield Marion Hill (see p. 3)
4. Christopher Pitzer - A bachelor who always lived with and took care of Grandma Bond; raised Rena after her mother died. He was engaged to Rene Cornelius when she died from Bright’s disease at age 21. Rena Kimberlin has the locket Chris gave Rene Cornelius which she returned to him before she died.
5. Estella Salome (Aunt Stell) Pitzer - married Jim Kimberlin. Lived at El Dorado, KS. Children:
a. Joe Kimberlin - married Sara Melinda (Sadie) Kimberlin
b. Maggie
c. Mark
d. Rena - Valley Center, KS
Estella died shortly after Rena’s birth from milkleg - she was a close friend of Rene Cornelius. Rena Kimberlin married Paul Kennedy, lives at Valley Center, KS (he worked at Cessna; she was a nurse). Both retired. A son, Neal, lives in California.
6. Nancy Pitzer - married John Adams, stepson of Grandma Bond’s and son of her second husband, Joe Adams. Had following children:
a. Anthony Adams (had13 children)
b. Stella
c. Eunice
d. Bert
e. Densie
f. Millie
Aunt Nancy delivered Aunt Maude Margaret Hill when she was born in Butler Co, 3 miles north of Potwin on Ned Rogers farm.
7. Lyman Pitzer - Married - one daughter (Edith Cox) lived in Wichita and worked there, lived with Aunt Maude a short time - had a retarded son.
8. Joe Adams - Married Rena Corfman - children:
a. Gerald - was deputy sheriff of Cowley Co.
b. Mary - a registered nurse - lives in El Dorado
c. Son - name unknown
Both Joseph Pitzer and Joe Adams died. When Joe Adams died of typhoid fever, Grandma Bond always doctored her family with Indian herbs and root medicines, but did not use these remedies for Joe Adams, because (according to Rena Kimberlin) she thought it was illegal for her to use Indian remedies, so they had a doctor but he did not survive the fever. At Grandma Bond’s death, July 4, 1911, one shelf in her pantry off her kitchen was filled with herbs and roots she had collected for making medicines, but she never told anyone how to use them or make them into medicines.
After Adams’ death, Margaret Ellen Rodman Pitzer Adams married a man by the name of Bond - this was not a long marriage, produced no children and ended in divorce. Grandma Bond also raised a girl by the name of Alice Vann (born about 1881) but never adopted her. She recently died in California.
Grandma Bond had fiery red hair and a temper to match. (She and Chris Pitzer were both strict disciplinarians and when Rena went to live with them, she was severely disciplined and punished a lot - Aunt Maude felt sorry for her.)
At Grandma Bond’s death, she left almost all of her estate to Christopher and Joe Adams and left $100 each to all of the Kimberlin children; she left only $1.00 to Delilah and Winkfield Hill because she claimed she had helped them with money along the years and had given them a team of horses.
Delilah Ann Pitzer married Winkfield Hill and after two miscarriages, the following nine children were born:
1. Charles Marion - Killed at Kelso, Washington while working in lumber camp at ate 17 and buried there.
2. Nora Ann - Married and divorced - nothing known of this marriage. Then married Ed Kamerer (brother of Cliff Hill’s wife) and had two children:
a. Mamie Kamerer (White) - lives in Washington state.
b. William Kamerer - lives in Wyoming - after service in World War I worked for Government as ranger.
3. Clifford Adelbert - married three times. First wife had a stroke, was paralyzed and her family took her home to care for her until she died. His second marriage was to a real old lady, Mary Berry, who made the Cherokee Strip run into Oklahoma and staked out a claim. She died; Cliff got the claim which he later sold, then married Emma Kamerer. Two children were born:
a. Clarence - now lives someplace in Missouri, has a son on the police force in St. Louis.
b. Edna Hill Praccia (husband was on police force in St. Louis, Mo., now dead.) She lives in St. Louis and is in contact with Aunt Maude and Zelma Strader.
Cliff Hill was in the restaurant business both here in Wichita where he lived for some years, and in St. Louis.
4. Cora Ann - Married William Hampton - had four children:
a. Roy - lived at Harper for some time but present whereabouts not known. (Retarded mentally).
b. Florence - married Clifford Peck, one son, Clifford, Jr. who after military service was placed in mental institution. Then married Jack Pittman, and had one daughter, Joyce Ann, who has four children, used to live on a farm near Neosho, Missouri and now lives in Tulsa, OK. Born 6/2/1898.
c. Pearl Hampton - Married Ed White, now living in Kansas City, MO - no children. Twin of Earl.
d. Earl - Died at age 8 - buried in potters field Highland Cemetery, Wichita, KA. Twin of Pearl.
5. Lemuel B. - Born April 11, 1876, died Feb. 19. 1951. Married to Dappie May Cornelius in 1897 - Feb. 28th in a new church at Potwin, KA. (Christian Church) - Children: Two miscarriages and 3 daughters:
a. Leathie - born 1/7/1901; married Harry Falk, six children: lived in Edinburg, TX
(1) Bill - died after military service in World War I.
(2) Lucille - married Tess Blackwell, 6 children, lives in Pharr, TX
(a) Luella Jo
(b) Mary Lou
(c) John
(d) Joe
(e) Betty
(f) Barbara
(3) Lois - married Gerald Ledford, lives in Tomball, TX, 3 boys, 1 girl.
(a) Jerry
(b) Jim
(c) Don
(d) Susan
(4) Phyllis - married Paul Tisdell, minister who died, then she married Jack Scott and live in La Vernia, TX. Has two sons.
(a) J. Paul
(b) Philip
(5) Elizabeth - married Albert Reed III; lives in San Antonio, TX.; has 3 sons.
(a) Albert
(b)
(c) William
(6) Margaret - married William Bishop, live in Edinburg, TX; 3 daughters and one son.
(a) Cindy
(b) Debbie
(c) Jeanne
(d) Scott
b. Lela - Born October 1, 1903; married Winfred Turner (deceased 1960) has twin sons and one daughter; lived in Edinburg, TX. Died 6/14/91.
(1) Jim - married Rosalie Sheridan; 2 sons and 1 daughter.
(a) Carolyn Grace
(b) Robert Wayne
(c) Philip Sheridan
(2) John - married Sherry Zier, 1 daughter, Jeanette Marie
(3) Patricia - married Winfield Sterling; 2 sons and 1 daughter
(a) James David
(b) Brian Winfield
(c) Ellen Beth
c. Hazel - Born 9/21/1905; married Glenn Lister, lives in Wichita, KS - no children.
The Winkfield Hill family lived at Udall, KS and L. B. went to school three years at the Green Valley School. He ran away from home when he was 12 and lived for a time with Grandma Bond. He married Dappie May Cornelius and they lived on a farm in Plum Grove (north and east about 3 miles). Lemuel wrote his mother before the first child was born and told her Dappie’s apron strings were getting short! After Leathie was born, Grandma and Grandpa Hill, Sadie and Maude went to visit them. They lived in a small run-down house, about 3 rooms, but it was neat and clean. Dappie had papered the bedroom and kitchen with newspaper which was common practice in those days because wall paper wasn’t available. (Grandma Bond’s privy was papered with newspapers, too). Dappie’s kitchen was a lean-to. They stayed all night and had breakfast of bacon and eggs. Grandpa Hill was a big egg eater and Dappie had fixed him only one egg and he was unhappy about it and said something to Lem about it so he told Dappie to fry him another egg. Dappie wouldn’t fry another egg for him because she was going to take those eggs to town!
Lemuel B. was between 8 and 10 years old when his family moved to Washington, but they didn’t stay out there very long, and after Charlie’s death returned to Kansas. His death was due to a logging accident.
When Lemuel ran away from home at about 12 years of age, he went to live with Grandma Bond near Potwin where he secured work on nearby farms and later at a party met Dappie Cornelius whose parents had come from Illinois (George Cornelius and Mary Sevilla Foulk) in a covered wagon and suffered through many rough years, including the grasshopper plague. Their homestead farm was located near Potwin and Whitewater, KS. After a courtship, aided by exchange of messages through children going to school, they were married in the Christian Church at Potwin on February 28, 1897. Dappie had been employed by a family at Peabody, KS nearby doing housework, and spent all her pay money for material for her wedding dress when the lady she worked for decided she no longer needed her services. Stranded there with no money, only the material for her wedding dress, she luckily found a ride to her folks home with a farmer in a spring wagon.
Their marriage was the first in the new Christian Church at Potwin - Lemuel was late for the wedding, so the minister would not charge a fee for his services. After the wedding, they went to the home of friends where everyone gathered for a big supper. They bought a new horse and buggy, called the mare “Deck”, and would drive to Udall to visit the Hill family. At first Deck had a beautiful, long tail but after many trips the tail became short and stubby. Lem explained that Deck switched it off on the dashboard of the buggy. Lem worked after their marriage on a ranch for J. D. Joseph; later they moved to Newton where he worked for the AT&SF Railroad in the roundhouse; then to Florence, KS where he still worked for the railroad. After some years there, they moved to Provident City, TX, near Houston, to farm but after a year or so returned to KS and settled at Hutchinson, KS where he worked for a boiler making foundry - it was hard labor and shortly after WW I, about 1919, he quit and rented a farm near Castleton, KS, owned by Grabers of Hutchinson. After a year or two, this venture didn’t work out and they returned to Hutchinson where he again worked for the railroad until 1928. In 1928 he quit, sold the home at 801 C. Street in Hutchinson and a wheat farm near Plains, KS, also much of the household belongings, and moved to a 10 acre farm near Edinburg, TX, about a mile from the farm where Leathie and her family had already settled. After building a house there, and a crop failure for several years, he went to work for the Water Company of Hidalgo County; also worked on a tractor cultivating orchards. After quitting that job - it was hard work, hot sun and he was getting too old for such hard work, especially after having had trouble with his eye in about 1934 when the doctors at San Antonio said he had cancer, but apparently he didn’t as they thought he would live only about two years; he then got a job driving a school bus which he held for several years until, due to poor eyesight and failure to pass his physical examination, he retired.
During the early years of the marriage after Leathie’s birth, they journeyed in a covered wagon to Oklahoma (where Cliff and his wife Mary Berry lived) to try to find work. They endured many hardships including floods and rains; Leathie was sick with pneumonia, and they could not find work. They were forced to return to Kansas and on the way stopped at the home of Lizzie Hill Fulton where Lemuel asked for a loan of enough money to see them through until he could find work, but the request was denied, and they then came to Newton where he found work on the railroad.
In Lemuel’s last years after he could no longer work, he was in poor health, spoke of a longing to return to Kansas. The last time he was in KS was about 1945 when they visited Hazel and Glenn who then lived in Kansas City, went back by way of Wichita and attended a family reunion at Maude’s home, 915 West Central, before returning home. Lemuel died at home in 1951; Dappie remained there until her death Nov. 9, 1969 while visiting Hazel and Glenn in Wichita, Kansas.
6. Elizabeth Belle Fulton - Born in 1880, died 1964, buried at Anthony, KS married Mr. Fulton; farmer, two daughters:
a. Zelma - Married Russell Strader; had 5 children
(1) Jimmie - operates bulk Standard Oil Service stations and farm stores at Wellington and Argonia, KA - has 2 children.
(2) he was 21 years old) - one daughter, lives in Wichita (wife Ella May works as secretary for Bd. Of Education).
(4) Anna (Hill) - lives at Plains KS, husband operates Farmers Union Elevator; has 3 girls and 1 boy.
(5) Kenneth - bachelor, lives with Zelma at farm near Argonia, KS. He farms old Grandpa Hill place which belonged to Lizzie and now belongs to Zelma; Zelma retired from Boeing Aircraft Co. and lives on her farm near Argonia.
b. Charlotte - Married Clarence Bowersock; lives at Anthony, Kansas; has two children:
(1) Clarisse Raida lives near Norwich, KS on farm and has 2 children
(2) Bill, Jr., bachelor, lives with his parents in Anthony, KS, helps his dad farm and also farms his own land.
7. Ray - died when he was 2 ½ years old.
8. Sarah Melinda (Sadie) - Married Joe Kimberlin (a cousin) lived at Lapland, KS near Eureka, KS, fed cattle for a banker, then worked for Lizzie for a time. Had eight children:
a. Lila
b. Arthur - married but separated, had no children, had a repair shop at Harper, KS. Died 1964.
c. Elwood - married 3 times - lives at Peoria, IL
d. Louis - married, lives at Red Bluff, CA, a Jehovahs Witness like Sadie - Sadie lived with them for a time.
e. Milo - lived on farm at Norwich, KS with wife Viola and one adopted boy. Died of lung cancer Feb. 1971.
f. Evelyn - Lives at Cheney. Has 7 children - married a farmer.
g. Alma (Jessup) - had two girls - died during an emergency appendectomy in 1958. One daughter married to man with 3 children, lives near Conway Springs, KS.
h. Joe, Jr. (Josie) - wife Sylvia, lives in Wichita. He works at Beech Aircraft - two boys; one in high school, the other of artistic inclination, works in a shoe store in Dallas.
Sadie was born on “Grouse Creek” and after marrying Joe Kimberlin they lived at Lapland, KS, then Argonia, then a rented place at Edna, KS. They then bought a farm at Dextor and lived there. After Joe died, Sadie sold the farm, bought a house in Arkansas City, she lost the house there and went to CA to live with Louie. After that didn’t work out she lived first with one and then the other of the children until her death, at a care home in Conway Springs, KS about 1965. Sadie always said when she married she wanted a man just like her brother Lemuel.
9. Maude Margaret - Born Oct. 8, 1887 near Potwin, KS (Plum Grove). The family moved to Wichita in 1900; she married Sam Deardoff in 1902 (died 1925). She then married Jack Connaughton in 1928; he died 1945. She married Hugh Bradfield in 1948 moved to Syracuse, KS and lived there until his death in 1963. Returned to Wichita in 1966. Lived at 1717 Woodland, Wichita, KS. There were no children by any of the marriages. Maude Margaret married at age 15; worked at a candy factory when 13 years old at $2.50 a week. Before her marriage she lived with her parents who had moved to Wichita, KS around the turn of the century - 1900. Sam Deardoff was a carpenter she met while he was working on a nearby house and would come to borrow drinking water from her folks. Sam died of what was apparently cancer in 1925. Before his death she had gone to work to support them and after working at the candy factory, she worked at a cracker factory, at the age of 16 years; later at a casket company across from the Broadview Hotel, putting molding on the outside of caskets. After leaving there around 1913 she worked at Wichita Laundry for a short time, then to Johnson and Larimer, men’s work clothes manufacturers. While there she was active in union work, helping to organize and represent the workers there. She was chosen by the Y. W. C. A. Industrial Dept. In 1918 as Industrial Woman of this area and sent to Bryn Marr College (Philadelphia suburb), Pa. and was delegate for women in industry and union organizations in 1918. After working a Johnson and Larimer, she worked during WW II at Fruhauf Manufacturing Co. making officers uniform coats; then at Langdon Tent and Awning Co. And Arotex. During these years after Sam Deardoff’s death in 1925, she married Jack Connaughton, a plumbing contractor, Irish Catholic, who liked to fish, and was a sheriff’s deputy. He was an interesting, likeable and flamboyant character, and had a plumbing shop on East Douglas for many years. He died in 1945. Before his death Maude had gone to work as head of the sewing room for the Sedgwick County School for the Blind where she worked 4 or 5 years until she met and married Hugh Bradfield, a water well drilling contractor from Syracuse, KS in 1948.
Aunt Maude and her third Husband, Hugh Bradfield, lived at Syracuse, KS where he did a profitable water well drilling business; she later sold her house at 915 Central to Urban Renewal which was later razed, also another house on Central they had bought; and she lived at Syracuse for 18 years during which time Hugh Bradfield died Dec. 25, 1963. Maude Margaret sold her property in Syracuse and in 1966 and moved to Wichita where she lived alone at 1717 Woodland, did her own housework, drove her own car (one of the last of the Edsel cars made by Ford Motor Company) and took care of her own business. She died 1/1/1975 after suffering a stroke and is buried in Wichita, KS
This account of the family history of Lemuel B. Hill is not necessarily perfect and represents accumulated information and facts gathered from various sources, principally Maude Margaret Bradfield and Rene Kimberlin. While some of the dates and facts may not be exactly accurate, in essence it is basically true, to the best of my knowledge.
Compiled by:
Hazel Hill Lister
1450 Woodland
Wichita, KA 67203
Table of Contents: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/3382423676443906063?hl=en
Table of Contents: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/3382423676443906063?hl=en
