By
Arvord Abernethy
On our
visit last week, I told you that I would tell you more about the
Lawrence Hillers when I came back.
The
first time I was attracted to the Hiller place was one day when I was
driving down the road and Mrs. Hiller was down at the entrance working
in the flowers that she had planted. My thoughts then were “What
ambition”. Recently when I visited the Ray Harveys who now live there,
and saw the work that had been done around the place, I had to use that
TV program expression, “It’s incredible.”
Lawrence
and Plina Black Hiller moved to that place in the early 1900’s and
lived in a house down southwest of the present house. About 1925 they
went to
Louisiana
and picked out some choice lumber to build their new home. The freight
car was switched to a siding at Porfa [Hamilton
County Poor Farm] and the lumber hauled by wagon on out to
the building site.
Mrs.
Hiller did much of the construction work on the house, especially on the
interior. She was an artist, even to the point of painting pictures, so
she did all the interior decorating. Excellent craftsmanship is
displayed everywhere.
The
unusual things that caught my attention were the rock and concrete items
about the yard that Mrs. Hiller had built. As one enters the yard, there
are impressive posts on each side. The rock used in them was a white,
porous, lacy looking rock they had brought from over in the
Vista
Mountain
area. This rock along with concrete and brick was used to make the post
which were about two feet square and six feet high. On each side was a
graceful little vaulted niche. Each post was capped with a perfectly
round concrete ball at each corner, then graceful concrete work led from
each ball to a larger, high ball in the center of the post. Mrs. Hiller
probably got the idea for such post from posts that lead to palaces, as
she had such a pride in her home.
Mrs.
Hiller also built some arbors, lily ponds, walks and a storage cellar in
the yard. The storage cellar is several feet deep with a high north wall
that is well decorated and slopes down to a low south wall. Glass
windows covered it and there is where she kept her flowers and garden
produce in the winter.
The
house needed re-shingling when Mrs. Hiller was nearly seventy years old,
so she got up there and did the job. It is said that she wore out the
tail of four or five dresses while doing it. It is also said that if a
shingle was not perfect, she would throw it aside.
The
Hillers’ niece, Mrs. Curtis Townsend, tells of a trip the Hillers took
up to
Yellowstone
Park
and around in the 1930’s. They fixed a food box with enough food for
the trip, slept in the car, and made the entire trip on $82.00.
Now
ladies, I have not told this to get you into trouble with your husbands
who may try to put more work off on you. I felt that people who have
such a desire to build a nice home with such ability and ambition should
be recognized.
Mr. and
Mrs. Hiller are resting from their labors in the
Pecan
Wells
Cemetery
and there is a monument at their graves, but no monument can so tell
their lives like the ones they left at their home place.
Another
new residence is being built here in our neighborhood; in fact, it is
right across the street from us. The Charlie Raibourns are building a
three bedroom two and one-half baths home here on
Barkley Drive
. Their daughter, Shirley, along with her husband, Mike Lewis and young
son, Juston Clay, will move to the farm home and work in partnership
with Charlie. Bob Jarvis is the contractor.
Charlie,
you will be surprised how quickly you can get a little lazy when you
move to town, especially when you have someone on the place to see about
things. One day I asked that other Blue Ridge boy who had moved to town,
Chuck Walton by name, what he was doing now since he had moved into town
and he said, “I don’t have a thing in the world to do, and have
twenty-four hours to do it in.”
Welcome
to town, Charlie and Aileen. You are to be commended for picking out
such good neighbors to live by.
Shared
by Roy Ables
Lawrence
William Hiller was born November 21, 1963, and died June 29, 1963.
He married Plina Black on February 8, 1908, Hamilton County Marriage
Record Bk. 4, p. 403. Plina was born November 25,1882, and died
May 6, 1969.
ACROSS THE FENCE
