Hannah Elizabeth Kilmer

this is part one of a long story written by Helen Hogue, grand daughter to Hannah Kilmer.

This is pretty interesting.

Enjoy!

Orisa

Hannah Kilmer

Copyright Helen Hogue

Grand Daughter to Hannah Kilmer

Sent to Don Tate

Received from Sandy Nelson

It is thought that Hannah Kilmer was born on the Conway farm in 1858. Her childhood was a short and busy one. Father Henry Kilmer was the father of 11 children so there was always chores for Hannah to do and family to care for. Her father felt that all girls should marry when they were young and he insisted that Hannah marry when she was only 12 or 13 years old. She married a man she didn’t love named Butters. She resented having to get married so much that she sat up all night and cried the first night to get married so much that she sat up all night and cried the first night they were married. They were very very poor and eventually had three children.

Butters left his wife and children often and did not provide for their needs- they had neither food nor clothing. Once when Butters was gone and the family was nearly starving, Hannah got word to her brother William to come and get her. He brought a wagon and took Hannah and the children home to his mother. It was a long journey by wagon and Hannah was so destitute when he arrived that she had not even a piece of bread or a cup of coffee to give her brother before they started back home.

Hannah had several brothers and sisters at home and she was often selected to care for them while her mother took the horse and went to town for various things they needed. They lived in a log cabin at first, but Henry later built the family a wood house. When the children got on Henry’s nerves Hannah was expected to lead him out to the old log house (he was blind in later years)so he could be alone—Hannah’s additional chore was always to light her fathers pipe for him as he couldn’t see to do it.

While the mother was gone to town and Hannah was looking after things, the children would often have adventures as children often do when their parents are gone. Once they cooked a chicken, prepared a whole dinner and were about to eat it when one of then called “Here comes Ma on the Horse”. Not wanting to be found out the children dumped the entire dinner into the privy! Years later when Hannah told her mother of this deed the mother commented that she would still have liked to spank the children for dumping out the dinner as they could not afford to waste it, and besides she had come home very tired and hungry.

Another time when Mother Kilmer was gone the children decided they would play doctor. They concocted a “medicine” out of salt, pepper, sugar, mustard, lard, and spices, as well as anything they could find in the kitchen. They dutifully took their medicine by the spoonful as the “doctor” ordered and by the time their mother got home they truly were sick and in need of some doctoring. Yet another day the children nearly set fire to the house when they were playing in the loft with gun powder and dried tow from the flax. It was Hannah’s quick thinking that helped her to grab the tow and smother it before it set the house on fire. Hannah said she could always remember when Abraham Lincoln was killed and her mother had to be away. The children dutifully cut or tore up suits of red underwear and carefully draped the house as a memorial to the slain president. When mother returned and found the fed underwear hanging all over she was shocked and angry; shocked to see the bright red used for mourning and angry because the underwear which was badly needed for wearing had been cut up.

Hannah lived at home during the diphtheria epidemic and her three children, five of her brothers and sisters, as well as herself all had diphtheria at the same time. All three of Hannah’s children died as did four of the brothers and sisters, the names of whom we do not know. Only Hannah and her brother Abe survived the epidemic while her mother Susan tragically buried four of her children and three of her grandchildren.

Hannah had many memories of her childhood and of her father, more of which I repeat here. Henry Kilmer came to Pennsylvania from New York. In New York he was friends with the Disbrow family but his friendship was interrupted when Henry went away for 12 or 13 years. When he returned, Henry told many stories of a war in which he had been involved, and of how he was taken prisoner, and in trying to escape he was caught and hung up by the thumbs. We think this was probably the Mexican war of 1864 but have no proof of this. Upon his return he went to visit his old friends the Disbrows to renew his friendship. He admired the Disbrows beautiful young daughter and asked about her. Henry found out that the young lady was the child that he had bounced on his knee before he went away. She became his wife, Susan Marie Disbrow. It was told that Susan had a stepmother at home and was not too happy there so she was willing to marry Henry even though there was thirteen years difference in their ages.

Henry did not prove to be the best of husbands- he drank excessively and was a poor provider. In addition to that he had a terrible temper and had frequent temper tantrums. He was very stern with his sons and beat them frequently. When the boys got big enough that he could not hold them he tied them to the barn door and beat them. Needless to say, all of the boys despised there father. One day Henry’s two sisters from New York came to see him. When Henry met his sisters with a buggy to take them home, he was so drunk and carrying on so badly that they would not get into the buggy with him. They returned home and had nothing further to do with their brother after that.

Susan, Henry’s wife, certainly had a hard life. Once when she was having one of her eleven babies, she could not deliver it. Henry was not there and Susan sent one of the boys thirty miles on horseback to go get the doctor. Meantime Susan begged the midwives in attendance to just let her get up for she felt sure the baby would come if she could just stand up, but they steadfastly refused! When the son came home with the news that the doctor was gone, Susan begged him to help her to get up. The boy stood his mother on her feet and the baby was born- dead! At another time when Henry was old and blind and staying in the o9ld log house so the kids wouldn’t annoy him, he told Hannah to go get the doctor and to tell him to bring his cup so he could bleed him as was the practice in those days. Hannah, age fourteen, forgot to tell the doctor about the cup and her father was so enraged that he gave her a beating in a violent fit of temper. Another time when Susan was having a baby Henry wanted her to get up and fix him some pancakes. When Susan could not do this Henry fastened some log chains around his body and pranced through the house yelling to his wife that the devil was after her.

Eventually Henry “Got the Religion” and settled down somewhat, although it is told once when he was on his knees praying, he got up, beat one of his sons, and returned to his knees to finish the prayers.

As stated previously, no one knows just how, when, or where Henry Kilmer died, but the date has been told as 1871. After he died Susan laid sick for a whole year. She had a heart condition and according to Hannah her chest was covered with red and white spots. Susan died in July 1883 and then since Hannah no longer had to look after her mother, she went from one brother to another as they needed her when their children were born. At one time she went to work in a hotel and the woman who hired her to be sure to shut her door because the woman’s husband would probably bother her since he had already caused all the other help to leave. Hannah also worked in a millinery shop making hats. She was not paid for this work but was given a new dress or a pair of shoes now and then. Someone advised her to get a paying job, which she did at a hotel. It was here that she met Robert Piper, the oil man, and they were married in 1880 either in Brookville or Penfield, PA. Hannah’s years with Robert Piper were happy ones in her life. She wanted for nothing, traveled a great deal as she accompanied her husband to his Masonic conventions, learned to paint and after being married four years had a child, Emma Marie- my mother.

This child had long been wanted and every precaution had been taken to assure her safe arrival- there were seven doctors in attendance at her birth.

Hannah was so happy about the baby that she had 63 dresses ready- all made by hand by the time that the baby arrived. Hannah was handy with a needle and did beautiful sewing and embroidery. These years provided Hannah with the most happiness of her life up until the time her husband’s illness began and the time of his death in 1903.

After Robert Piper was placed in the state Hospital at Warren, PA Hannah had to sell the farm for she could not make a living from it even though she was an excellent manager. So Mrs. Piper and her daughter Emma moved to Butler, PA. and rented a small restaurant near the railroad station. The restaurant was a big success and Mrs. Piper’s cooking became known all over town. Soon Hannah wanted to buy a restaurant of her own. In order to see if she had enough money to buy the restaurant which was for sale in payment of the debts, she took all of her diamonds to a jeweler to have them appraised and to ask where she could sell them. The jeweler told her he would keep her diamonds, loan her the money she needed and then return the diamonds to her whenever she could pay him back. So the restaurant was purchased and it was much easier to run for it was much bigger than the first one and much better equipped. The new restaurant had a walk in refrigerator and large stoves, coffee urns, and other equipment of ease the work of cooking. Meal tickets were sold for $5.00 per week and included 21 meals at $.25 each and one free meal. The business prospered and Hannah even was able to cook for various conventions, both in and out of town. In less than one year, Hannah had her diamonds back and the loan paid in full. At the time of this business Hannah and Marie lived in an upstairs apartment over the grocery store which was next door to the restaurant. There were other apartments and they all shared a common toilet which was built along side a kind of walkway on the second level. It was hot weather and the plate glass windows out of the restaurant’s kitchen had been replaced with screens. The large glass windows were laid across some barrels which the grocery folks had placed in back of their store. One day as Hannah was about to use the toilet, the boards gave way and the whole thing dropped to the ground. As Hannah felt the board give way she grabbed a water pipe but it broke and she too fell to the ground, landing on the barrels. Hannah was badly hurt and among other things she had 92 cuts on one side of her body between her shoulder and her hip. Doctors said that it was the barrels that saved Hannah in spite of all the cuts from the glass, for had they not been there she would have fallen to the cement and would surely be killed.

After the fall it was harder for Hannah to run the restaurant and it was only a short time after that that Robert died. Mrs. Piper tried to continue with the restaurant, but found that she no longer had the health to do the work. Her child Emma Marie was not old enough to be of much help as she was just eight. Not too long after her husbands death Hannah married Charlie Wentling, one of her restaurant patrons. They were married in Clarion, PA. They wanted to be married quietly and so went off on the train to Clarion. After they were married Hannah wanted to stop at Jim Pipers , her husbands brother. (This was the brother of Robert Piper, dead husband of Hannah) They found no one home at the farm and since it was meal time Hannah fixed food and they had their wedding dinner there. Of course Hannah left a note telling pf her marriage to Wentling and of the meal she had fixed. Jim Piper’s home was one where the door was never locked and anyone was always welcome. Following Sunday School it was the usual thing for all the young people to go from church to the Pipers for there was sure to be food ready- also an abundance of cookies, cakes, and pies. Jim Piper had 11 children of his own and he always wanted them all to feel free to bring their friends to their house. I guess when 11 children all bring there friends that would make a pretty good house full on a Sunday afternoon and also would include most of the young people of a small country church. It was not unusual to make 4 or 5 freezers of ice cream before the afternoon was over.

Hannah and her new husband moved into a house in Butler on Cunningham Street The Piper farm was sold to make the down payment and Charlie was to make the monthly payments. Hannah discovered too late that Charlie was a heavy drinker and that he had a violent temper. He worked on the railroad as a maintenance man and was gone most of the week. When he came home on week ends he usually brought a bottle with him and drank its contents while he was home. Hannah took in boarders at this time to help with expenses. At one time Charlie got drunk and ordered all the boarders out and refused to let his wife take any new ones. Therefore Hannah set up a millinery shop in the house and sent her daughter, Emma Marie to a town shop to learn the trade. Like all that Hannah did , this too proved to be profitable. Charlie made her give it up eventually because he did not like the shop in his house. Next the Wentlings bought a house in Butler on Lookout Avenue, and here they only had a few roomers. The third house for the Wentlings was on Lincoln Avenue and this was the house Hannah and Charlie bought. Charlie, Hannah, and Emma Marie continued tp live on Lincoln Avenue while Marie finished her schooling in Butler, attended college for two years and then got married. However things had not worked out too well for Charlie and Hannah. After her daughter got married and moved to West Virginia, Hannah began to have strange “spells” which were like heart attacks but from which she always made a complete recovery. One day the doctor asked Hannah if she ever had these spells when she visited her daughter, and she replied that she never had. When Hannah told the doctor this, and knowing of the problems that Hannah was having with her marriage, he told her that he thought her husband might be putting something in her food which poisoned her and that he didn’t think it was safe for her to live with him any longer. So Hannah went to West Virginia to live with her daughter, her son in law Jesse, and her new grandson Robert. Marie’s husband was very kind and considerate of his mother in law, she adored him, and was very happy living in the house with this family. One day some friends in Butler called and told Hannah that Charlie had another woman living with him in Butler. Hannah went right home, hired a lawyer and sued for a divorce. Charlie also got a lawyer and was going to bring suit against Hannah for leaving him. However when Charlie’s lawyer found out the true story and learned how Charlie had lied to him, he refused to take the case. The matter was settled out of court, Hannah got her divorce and the house, Charlie got the car and the diamond ring. Then Hannah sold the house and used the money to help Jesse and Marie make a down payment on there house in Morgantown, West Virginia. Hannah went to West Virginia and lived with her daughter only a short time until she died in 1920 at the age of 62. Even though her life was not a long one it was full of variety, full of hardships, full of sadness and full of happiness. Hannah Kilmer Butters Piper Wentling did indeed have a remarkable life and was indeed a remarkable woman, as all who knew her have testified.