| Biography |
- Reminiscences of Ruth Chapin Hill
ANNA SUPPLEE HILL
Anna was the eldest of the seven children of Mary Louisa Cadwallader and Harry Martin Hill. She was born September 10, 1898. She was the baby that forced the marriage of her parents.
She also was the child who took the brunt of Rachel Angeny Hill's religious fanaticism and dictatorship. Anna was her name, but in the family she was called Anne. I always called her Aunt Anna.
On at least one occasion as a teenager she visited with the Cadwallader aunts in Philadelphia. While there, at age 14, Aunt Bertha Worrell told her the truth about her parentage. Forced marriage versus having a bastard child was a big issue early in the last century. The knowledge she gained had a tremendous impact on Anne.
Seth and Laurence would joke that Anne returned from Philadelphia as a Cadwallader "lady", too much a lady to do housework. The boys were left to run the vacuum cleaner (foot pumped) and dust. The brothers weren't nasty about it, they joked about it.
The story was told that "Holy Rollers" used to come to Milton, hold meetings in a tent at the fair grounds on North Front Street. At one of the meetings, Anne went up to the altar to be "saved". As was the custom, she was asked what church should be notified to follow up on her acceptance of Jesus Christ. Anne asked that they notify the Episcopal Church, her mother's church.
There were Baptist "spies" in the audience who reported her heresy to her grandmother, Rachel.
As she had done in the past, so it was reported, Rachel took to her bed with a "heart attack", called in the preacher and the deacons of the church. (Do Baptists have deacons? I don't know.) They called the culprit on the carpet, in this case Anne. Rachel ranted, they all prayed over Anne. In effect they scared the living daylights out of Anne. She joined the Baptist Church and was a loyal, dependent, brain-washed Baptist for the rest of her life.
My mother (Ruth Young Chapin) told the story that when Anne and Ruth's sister, Dot, who were friends, walked together, Anne would cross the street rather than walk on the sidewalk in front of the Episcopal Church. Even doing that much would contaminate her.
When she was grown, she taught typing and perhaps other secretarial skills for some period of time in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. Laurence reported that at that time she had gotten him dates, that she was "fun".
When I was a little girl and Anne and her family visited on Front Street, I would follow Anne around begging her to repeat a poem I loved. It starts, "Father calls me William, Mother calls me Will ... " and goes on from there. As I remember, every stanza ends "... But jess 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I can be."
A bit older, I remember visiting at the Baker cabin on Fishing Creek (north of Bloomsburg, PA) and sitting at the dining table with the Hill family. The family would talk and joke about Topic A. They would go on to Topic B, maybe even on to Topic C. Suddenly Anne would speak up with a coment on Topic A. She was totally removed from what was going on at the time. Even I was aware of it.
Over the years my family saw little of the Bakers. We would stop in Bloomsburg for a few minutes on our way to Milton. At least once Uncle Bob and Aunt Anna stopped in Westfield on their way to New York City to attend the Army-Notre Dame football game.
I adored Uncle Bob. He was outgoing and fun, like the Hills. I always wanted to see more of him, but we seldom did. He wasn't usually around when we stopped in Bloomsburg.
I saw little of the Baker cousins. What I do remember was Mother's report on going to Bob, Jr.'s wedding to Fern Shellenberger. My parents sat behind Anne and Bob, and Bob cried during the wedding ceremony. Mother had never seen a man cry before. Bob was obviously distressed by his son's choice of a wife and marriage at such an early age. Bob, Jr. was only in college.
Not long after that Anne had announced that she was "giving up everything but her family for her religion"! I doubt the Bakers had much of a social life. Bob was outgoing, fun loving, a man's man. Anne was distinctly not the woman who could join in with that life style.
Sadly Anne reversed that decision only a couple of months before Bob had a fatal heart attack.
Anne had financial problems after Bob's death. No will was found, the Baker brother who took over the business (the Baker Funeral Home) pretty much cut her out. She worked for a short time as a secretary-typist, I have no idea where or for how long. Long enough to qualify for social security anyway.
Anne was becoming more and more dependent on prescription drugs, drugs for her mental, psychological state. She apparently saw a number of doctors, did not inform each of them of the drugs prescribed by the others. Betty was concerned that she was grossly over-medicated. She existed in a drugged haze.
At one point, in the hospital for whatever reason, the hospital doctors took her off all her medications, started from scratch with what was required. Betty reported Anne was much more lucid. Out of the hospital, back to her own doctors, back on her various prescription drugs, she returned to her hazy drugged state of existence.
At one point, I don't remember the circumstances, except for hearing about it later, Anne was committed to a psychiatric hospital, had electric shock treatment to try to alleviate her psychological problems. While Oren was still home and in high school, after his father's death, he was responsible for again seeing his mother put in a hospital and again she had electric shock treatments.
Thanks to her grandmother Rachel, her father and others, she had become an emotional, psychological cripple.
Anne was under the care of a psychiatrist for years. During her sessions, Anne apparently spoke often about her independent sister, Betty. The psychiatrist reportedly told her that she should talk over some of her problems with her sister, the sister sounded well grounded and could be helpful. So Anne did tell Betty things about her life, her marriage, her family.
One of her stories concerned her dating Bob Baker. He often came for Sunday dinner, but she would never invite him in when he brought her home from a date. The reason was the twins. They slept nude and sometimes walked in their sleep. Anne was terrified they would do so when Bob was there.
As a World War I veteran, there wasn't much that Bob hadn't seen, experienced. If the twins had wandered around nude, he would have thought it the greatest joke in the world.
When Betty told the story to the twins, they responded that if they had known that, they would have been happy to take naps on Sundays and "sleep walk" when Bob was visiting!
Something else Betty told, whether it came from Anne I don't remember, but I doubt it. What Betty said was that Bob had been very social, had a good time, often was in the company of socially unacceptable women. He wanted the woman he married to be above reproach, therefore he courted Anne.
Sadly he didn't understand her whole background and may have regretted his decision. Whatever his misgivings, never by word or deed did he publicly or privately say a word against Anne. When they were together he honored her sometimes screwball attitudes.
With my mother's advice and help, Betty organized her parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Preceding the family dinner, wine was served, a toast was proposed. Anne commented: "If I had arranged this, I would have had grace."
One of the twins piped up: "Grace who?" Typical.
Bob only brought up the wine glass, he didn't drink.
When I decided to be married in Bloomsburg so that Grandmother could attend the wedding, I knew nothing about what was available there. We asked Anne for help, and she mostly arranged things for me. She did a wonderful job and I was grateful. When called upon, she could take responsibility and get things done, she knew Bloomsburg.
When she visited us in Glen Rock, NJ, she could be a bit "out of it", but she was pleasant and cooperative, made no demands.
After she retired, Betty returned to Milton to the house she had inherited from Grandmother. George and I would go up on weekends when other Hills were visiting. We would often go off on jaunts, Betty organizing it. Anne was always invited, included.
Anne would fuss, mainly about not keeping to her eating schedule. Things like that were important to her. Betty would get angry, harangue her about it. The brothers would simply accept that Anne was
being Anne and let it go at that.
She spent many years researching the Cadwallader genealogy. She had it privately printed in 1970.
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1898 - 1976 (77 years)
