BIOGRAPHY:
(Dennis C.8, William W.7, William6, William5, Samuel4, Samuel3, Jonathan2, George1 Mills) |
MARY CATHERINE10 MILLS was born 15 January 1870 at Russia, Shelby County, Ohio to Augustus9 Mills and Catherine Mary Maxton. She was their third child. Mary joined Albert T. and Nancy Jane in the growing family. Then came her other siblings: James L., Edward P., Charles C., George, Oscar, Margaret, and baby Elon "Ellie" who died in infancy in 1883.
Mary told her daughter, Rita (Mills-Lehmann) Shields, when her father [Augustus] was living, she [Mary] and her siblings went up to bed and had to say their night prayers. Her brothers would pray:
'Now I lay me down to sleep |
They'd all laugh and their parents would yell up to tell them to settle down and go to sleep.
Mary and her nine siblings were left fatherless when their father died at the age of 40 years from a kick in the head by a horse in 1882. After Augustus' death, his widow tried to maintain and keep the family farm with the help of her young family, but she had to finally sell the farm and land, whereupon she and they moved to Piqua, Miami County, Ohio. The widow, Catherine (possibly spelled Catharine, as she was of German descent), never remarried.
Little is known of Mary's young life, but she told Rita that if her father had lived that she (Mary) would have received a longer education. She (Mary) said her father (Augustus) believed in educating his entire family, not just the boys as was common in those day.
Rita recalled that her mother, Mary Catherine, believed in fortune telling, omens, etc. She could read tea leaves, taro cards, and life timelines from the palm of one's hand. Rita said that while still on the farm in Shelby County, Ohio, Mary said that she had had her fortune told by a gypsy. Evidently, some gypsies stopped by and wanted some oats for their horses. In exchange a gypsy offered to tell their fortunes. This happened when Mary was young, but many things came true according to Mary. The gypsy told Mary that she would marry a man that she would meet at a dance, and he would part his hair in a different way than the usual way of the time. Mary told her children of going to dances in the Versailles/Willowdell and surrounding areas. She did meet John Michael Lehmann at one of these dances, and he did part his hair in a different way.
The gypsy also told her that she would live to be a very old woman and walk with a cane. She lived to be 91 years old, and when she fell and broke her hip, she needed the aid of a walker. She was told that she would live in a small white house. In her declining years she was to live in a small white bungalow, next to the large home John had built for Mary and their family.
Dating John Michael Lehmann presented an obstacle for the two young people. John was of the Roman Catholic faith and Mary was of the Protestant faith...the faith of her upbringing (denomination) is unknown. The families bitterly opposed their relationship due to their religious backgrounds, and when Mary consented to marry John and convert to Catholicism, Mary's family was quite upset. However, on 10 May 1892, John Michael Lehmann took Mary Catherine Mills to be his wife. John Anthony and Regina Lehmann (both related to the groom) served as their witnesses. The Rev. Wm. Bigot officiated. [Source: St. Michael’s Parish: Marriages] Thus Mary, daughter of Augustus Mills & Mary Catherine Maxton, having converted to Catholicism from her Protestant upbringing, repeated her vows to John, the man who "parted his hair in a different way," thus fulfilling part of the fortune told to Mary by that gypsy many years before.
The bow tie was worn by John.
The boutonniere was worn by John and corsage by Mary, as seen in their wedding picture.
Hands of bees' wax were on their wedding cake.
So it was that the two joined in marriage and in a life together to build a home and family. Mary's story is much intertwined with that of her husband, John. She and John moved to Kenton Co., Kentucky for three years because of John's work. John had built a "fancy" cabin with wooden floor. Mary had made curtains for the windows. Here their two eldest daughters, Catherine and Jennie, were born. Here they took in boarders. Here one day a distraught mother carrying her son (turning blue) appeared at Mary's door for help. The child had a severe case of the croup. Mary quickly prepared a concoction of turpentine and syrup and got it into the child. Within moments the child had vomited and was saved. She later recalled that the mucous was so thick that it quickly dispersed through the small cracks/slats in her wooden floor. Mary did not care for the creatures and life in the howling wilderness, so the young family returned to Ohio and eventually settled in Piqua, Miami County, Ohio. Here nine more children were born, namely, Leo, Henrietta, Regina, Martin, Francis, Gerhard, Gertrude, and Rita, and here they reared nine of them to adulthood. Piqua would become their lifetime home. Be sure to read John's Biography for additional information and a different twist to their lives.
Rita told how her mother, Mary, worked hard all of her life. "She very seldom went places, as she was always busy cooking, baking, cleaning, washing, ironing, and sewing. She'd usually bake cakes on Saturdays. On Sundays she and Dad would go to early Mass, then she'd come home and bake six, eight, or more pies at a time, prior to preparing Sunday dinner. Come house cleaning time in the spring, rugs had to be dragged outside to hang on the line so they could be beaten clean and aired. Mattresses, springs, and bedding were dragged down from upstairs and aired and cleaned. Mom [Mary] often did this all by herself."
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rita continued. "Groceries were delivered everyday for as long as I can remember. They were delivered by horse at first. Maybe for over forty years, Mom had never gone into the grocery store. I even had my groceries delivered when we lived in the duplex upstairs."
As most mothers in those day, Mary, too, designed and made clothing for her family. Rita indicated, "She was very good at sewing. She made most of our clothing, even underwear. Each summer she'd go to The Hosiery and Superior Underwear Company to buy the knit material to make our underwear."
"I [Rita] was always fascinated by the sewing machine and went over to it whenever I could, but got chased away when seen there. Guess Mom thought I'd break it, or a needle, or run the needle in my hand, etc. I remember one afternoon when Mom was sewing I hung around all afternoon trying to pick up courage to ask her where babies came from, but never got enough courage." [It should be noted here that Rita, herself, was a very talented seamstress. She made clothes for relatives, as well as, for her own daughters. She would frequently tear apart a larger older dress or coat (hand-me-down), redesign it, and reuse the material for other purposes. This writer (Audrey) was not always pleased to get handmade-hand down pieces of clothing, preferring instead the store purchased clothing, but has come to recognize the talent her mother, Rita, had with cloth. So, somehow, my mother, Rita, did get to a sewing machine, and perhaps with watching her mother and even eventually getting advice and lessons from her mother, she, too, developed the sewing skills.]
Rita couldn't help but add this little tidbit. "When Mom went visiting, Gert usually got out of going, but I didn't, and it was always, `This is the baby.' If there were no other children around, I had the privilege of sitting on a chair for several hours and listen to the adult conversations---me with a closed 'zipper' on my mouth."
Rita related, "At Eastertime Mom always insisted on putting lard on a clean cloth and would grease each Easter egg until each was very shiny. As she grew older, we, children, would color the eggs, and Mom had the job of shining the eggs. Even in her eighties, she would sit patiently to grease each egg, really enjoying it as in years past." Gertrude reminded Rita that "sometime before Easter, Mom would use a wet red cloth that would fade. She would color a few eggs to make them pink and also onion skins to make them a brownish yellow, and she would say, 'The Easter bunny is around already and he'll be here on Easter, too.' "
According to Rita, Mary had some sayings which she frequently repeated to her children. They are:
- "After a rain or if the weather had been looking like rain for a while, Mom would say that if there's enough blue in the skies (between the clouds) to make a dress for the Virgin Mary, then it would soon be clearing up."
- "Another thing she would tell us is `You can't carry water on both shoulders.' By this she meant that if she was angry or put-out with someone, that we, too, should not be a friend or friendly toward that person either. In other words, she felt we had to choose a side to be on, and preferably, we would stand with her. This quotation I didn't go along with, for often I could see both sides and understand and sympathize with each, so couldn't always choose one over the other."
Mary took excellent care of her children. She nursed many of them during bouts of illness tucking them into bed beside her and her husband. Many times she deprived herself of needed sleep and rest in order to nurse and care for a child in need of a mother's attention. Every moment of every day was spent caring for her family in one way or another.
Rita remembered that whenever her mother wanted to talk to her father about something, she would say, "John, we need to talk." Instead of fussing and arguing in the presence of the children, they went into their bedroom and quietly discussed whatever needed to be discussed or resolved. Rita did not remember a time when the two openly argued about something.
Gertrude recalled that her sister, Heine (Henrietta Catherine) had once told her the following information concerning the deaths of their brothers, Francis Henry and Gerhard John. "Mom would bathe and dress each lifeless body, lay the baby's body on a pillow, then she would call the children in by saying 'Come and look at my little angel.' Dad would then rent a surrey, and Dad and Mom would hold the coffin across their laps on the way to church. They would take the dead child to St. Boniface Catholic Church for a funeral mass called the 'Angel Mass.' Afterwards, they again would take the coffin across their laps for final burial at Piqua Forest Hill Cemetery.
Gertrude also said that in later years when she and her husband, Joseph Preston Beihl, would take Mary to the cemetery to decorate the graves at Memorial Day time, Mary remarked that there was little baby buried between Francis and Gerhard, for John had gotten permission from the cemetery personnel to do so. It is not known definitely if this is true or false, but records indicate a child is buried between the two Lehmann sons. Gert believed there was possibly another LEHMANN child, but church records do not indicate another child, and cemetery records seem to indicate another family's child.
From burial records of Forest Hill Cemetery is recorded the following three boys buried side by side:
- "Gearhart Layman. Buried Sept. 27, 1909 (4 months old) Grave 95 St. Joseph 10B Section";
- "Frederick Hickey. Buried July 7, 1909 (11 months old) Grave 96 St. Joseph 10B Section" (This is possibly the child Mary spoke of, as he could have been buried in the LEHMANN plot, and John had gotten permission to use it for someone other than a LEHMANN.);
- "Frank N. Lehmann. No burial date given. Grave 97 St. Joseph 10B Section" This is probably Francis Henry Lehmann who died 22 June 1908 at the age of 6 months. Headstones at the time of this writing indicated the burial places of the above mentioned LEHMANN infants. I would assume the cemetery record was difficult to read for Francis Henry, as the early way of writing the "H" often resembles a "N", and Frank is often used in place of Franc/Francis.
Mary, being of English and German ancestry, respectively, appears to have thwarted her parents’ religious teachings. For a good number of years after Mary's marriage to John, the MILLS and LEHMANN families appear to have tolerated their religious differences. However, one sad Sunday, following a visit with the Mills-Maxton family, John & Mary returned home, and a decision was made to never again revisit. Thus strained relations between the Lehmann & Mills-Maxton families eventually led to alienation due to their religious differences. As a result, Rita and Gertrude never knew their maternal grandmother. Mary would never again see her mother in a social way, and only on her mother’s deathbed, would the two be reunited ever so briefly. [Source: Rita & Gert]
"Helen Weis, the unmarried daughter of Nancy Jane (Mills) and Boniface Weis, gave this writer a family picture postcard. Mom was holding Gert, who was born in 1910. She looks to be less than a year old. It was taken near our grape arbor, so it must have been the summer of 1911. The split between Mom [Mary Catherine (Maxton-Mills) Lehmann] and Grandma Mills [Catherine Mary (Beard-Maxton) Mills] would have had to occur after that."
Rita recalled, "Mom didn't seem to put the blame so much on her mother, but more on Aunt Mag [Margaret] and her brothers. Guess they just didn't like Catholics, and must have 'rubbed' Dad [John] and Mom the wrong way whenever they got together. There evidently had been a flare-up after one of their visits because Mom told me that on one Sunday on their way home for visiting Grandma Mills that Dad said, 'Mary, we aren't going back again.' So from that time on they stayed away.
I grew up not really knowing my Grandma Mills. I didn't know her since I was younger than Gert. The closest I was to her was when she was in her coffin in 1923. I was 10 years old by then. When I was about seven or eight, Gert and I were walking home from school, walking on Adam Street. We were supposed to come down Roosevelt Avenue, which was then South Avenue. On the northeast corner of South and Adam Streets, an old woman was in her yard. Gert recalls that the old woman was sweeping, but I remember or think I remember that she was in the yard maybe looking at flowers around the house. Gert said to me, 'Rita, I think that's Grandma,' for Gert remembered that Dad [John] had told her that Grandma Mills lived there."
The story continued. "When Grandma Mills was dying she kept asking for 'Mary.' The doctor happened to be there one time when she kept calling out 'Mary,' 'Mary,' 'Mary'... He asked, 'Who is this Mary? Where does she live?' Guess the family told him, and he said, 'You go get her. Your mother can't die until she sees her.' So they came after Mom. On her deathbed Grandma Mills asked Mom, 'Please forgive me?' Soon after Grandma Mills died." Gert says that it was Mom who washed and dressed her mother for burial.
Although Nancy Jane (Maxton-Mills) Weis married a Catholic, she did not become a Catholic until just before she died at age 92. However, Aunt Jane did rear her children in the Catholic faith. According to Rita and Gert, there was no "rift" between Aunt Jane and the MILLS family. Rita indicated, "Guess that was the difference. Mom converted to Catholicism at the time of her marriage, while Aunt Jane didn't until much later. As far as the MILLS belonging to a specific Protestant affiliation, I really don't know, only that they didn't like Catholics."
This writer (Audrey) has often marveled how much two cousins looked alike. Mary "Pete" (Mills-Weis) Long, daughter of Boniface and Nancy (Mills) Weis and Rita (Mills-Lehmann) Shields, daughter of John and Mary Catherine (Mills) Lehmann, resembled each other...close enough to be sisters...yet not sisters, but first cousins, daughters of sisters. Rita was the only daughter, last born of eleven children, to inherit the blond hair, blue eyes of her mother's English MILLS ancestry.
Rita remembered that it was said that Dr. Hetherington said there should be no more children after the birth of Rita. "Mom's health was very bad, and I was told that Catherine [the eldest of the LEHMANN children] took over and acted like a mother to me, since Mom was unable to do so. In fact, I was told that I called Catherine 'MOTHER'."
"When I was about six years old, I remember going to the doctor with Mom. The picture is very dim, but I remember him having her put each hand into or onto some kind of apparatus. Could it possibly have been some early type of giving 'shock treatments'? This part is very clear in my mind, but I was too young to understand WHY?. Perhaps she had a nervous breakdown."
One day, John came home from work and indicated he could no longer work. Mary told him that it was okay and not to return to work. Mary was about to loose her dearly, beloved with whom she had spent 35 years. John died in 1927 leaving Mary a widow for the remaining 34 years of her life. At one time his will was recorded as being the shortest will on record in Miami County, Ohio, leaving everything to Mary. "I hereby will my property and personal belongings to my wife, Mary C. Lehmann, at my death."
The years that followed the death of John were hard years. Gert and Rita felt like they were deprived of many of the pleasures of life during their teen years following the death of their father. Money was only spent on purchases of items for necessity and survival. However, they knew that money was tight and times were difficult for their mother.
Sitting Front: Heine, Wanda Jean, Mary, Catherine
[I would assume that Jean was the photographer here.]
Front: Stooping: Joe & Bernard
Rita was their aunt.
Through the years as her children married and had children of their own, Mary's Sundays became visiting days with the various families. Mary's children and grandchildren came a callin'.
Middle Row: Johnnie Quinlisk with arms up, Leonard Zimmer, Bobbie Rittenhouse
Front Row: Mary Catherine Wilkins, Mary Eileen Quinlisk, and Dolores Zimmer
July or August 1932
Cousins (Bob, Leonard, John, Kitty, Doe, Mary Eileen, & Wanda Jean) gathered in the home of their grandmother, and I am told that here they spent many a pleasureable afternoon in the company of each other. Since there was an age difference of 17 to 10 years between the next group of cousins (Sandra, Audrey, Barbara, & Martin) and then another 10 years between the next group (Karen, Carol, Linda, & Michael), my stories can only reflect those times that I remember or were told to me.
Front: Sandra Shields, Grandma Mary (Mills) Lehmann, Audrey Shields
The LEHMANN grandchildren came in three waves:
The first wave included those in the back row above, plus children of Albert Lehmann not present.
The second wave included: Sandra, Audrey, and siblings: Martin & Barbara Lehmann
The third wave included: Karen Shields, Linda Lee Lehmann, and siblings: Carol and Michael Lehmann.
Rita recalled, "In later years, Mom would look forward to Sunday afternoons when so many of her children and grandchildren and their friends came, which was almost every Sunday. Sometimes there would be 25 or more visiting. At times Mom was asked, 'Don't so many people get on your nerves?' Mom ALWAYS quite emphatically responded, 'My children never get on my nerves.' "
Front: Sandra Shields, Grandma Mary (Mills) Lehmann, Audrey Shields, Martin Lehmann & Barbara Lehmann
About 1937, the ten room home of John and Mary was converted into a duplex. Their youngest child, Rita, and her husband, Dale Caleb Shields, lived in the upper portion of the duplex for the next years. Rita helped her mother with the downstairs housecleaning.
1944
As a small child living in the duplex part of the home, this writer (Audrey) recalls how the men would gather in our upstairs living quarters to play poker on the Sunday visits, while the women and children visited downstairs where Grandma lived. I can see Grandma relaxing in an easy chair in the sitting room.
Her beautiful high backed bed, washstand, and dresser stood tall in her bedroom after many years of use. A deep walk-in closet held medicinal dandelion wine during prohibition, and years later a jug continued to hide deep within its domain...of course, for medicinal purposes! Here, too, was her rocking chair, her sewing machine and above it hung a wall statue of St. Theresa. From somewhere within those four walls she would pull out her collection of family pictures to share with those who would sit for a time and listen to her stories. I recall these were the times that I heard some of the same stories of life and relationships being told in this history.
I recall Grandma fixing Sandra (my older sister) and me snacks of bread, butter, sugar and cinnamon and sitting on the steps leading to her kitchen to eat that treat. Sandra recalled that she also made us tea, as our mother didn't like tea. The old Seller's type kitchen cabinet stood its ground beside the back door, and an elongated table continued to await and welcome its many guests and visitors who would sit a spell to chat or imbibe.
I remember seeing the Christmas tree in the parlor and the German nativity statue that Mother (Rita) said Uncle Mart had brought home from St. Boniface Church. (The church had replaced it and gave the old one to the LEHMANN family.) A gas fireplace with an expansive mirror and mantel clock, a library table with a Tiffany style lamp, a sofa and a chair graced the parlor's domain.
I can see my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins playing croquet in the empty lot next to the big house. I can still see the sandbox where Sandy and I played under the huge apple tree. The view of the cherry tree draped with flowers followed by bright red cherries is vivid yet today.
I can picture the coal bin yet, the coal furnace, the aged ice box which still had its home in the basement, and the shelves holding the jars of fruits and vegetables from the labors of my mother and Grandma. From the grape arbor, grape jelly filled some of the jars sitting quietly on those shelves. From the garden came, yellow wax beans, Grandma's favorite, grown, canned, and stored for wintry eating. Red tomatoes in quart jars gave more color to those plain wooden shelves.
From this family home, we gathered to say farewell to cousins being sent off to World War II. I recall going with family to the train station to see my cousins board the train that would take them away for a time. We were all at Grandma's to welcome them home again...all safely returning to us. Grandpa's flag continued to be hung during those war torn years.
Rita, Jennie (background), Zelma (wf/o Leo Lehmann), Jean (background),
John Quinlisk (s/o Heine), Heine, Gert (background),
and Mildred (#2 wf/o Martin Lehmann) with dau, Barbara.
Zelma and Mildred are sisters-in-laws.
Leo Lehmann, Dale Shields (background, hus/o Rita), Jack Quinlisk (hus/o Heine), Joe Beihl (hus/o Gert)(background),
John Quinlisk (s/o Jack and Heine), Robert Rittenhouse (hus/o Jean), Roy Zimmer (hus/o Jennie), Martin
Brothers: Leo Lehmann and Martin Lehmann
The rest (except John Quinlish) were brothers-in-law of the LEHMANN brothers.
I recall going to the cemetery with my parents and Grandma on Memorial Days to place peonies and other flowers at the gravesites of loved ones gone to their reward. It was a happy time of family togetherness, of commitments to each other, but most of all the giving and receiving of LOVE in its many facets of life...baptisms, first communions, holidays, marriages, heartaches, estrangements, reconciliations, deaths, etc. I was sad when all of this came to an end for us, for when my father lost his job, we had to move on. Bottle caps were no longer needed for milk bottles as times and needs were changing. We were off to Texas, then Illinois, and finally Indiana. Change came to the big house, as another family moved in and took our place. Aunt Jean, Uncle Bob, Bob and Wanda Jean became the new residents at 1138 1/2 S. Roosevelt Avenue. Our family's life in Piqua had come to an end, and thus memories beyond that time of Grandma and Piqua are sparse and limited.
In her declining years, Mary, wife of John, was to sell the lot next to her large home and then watched as a small white bungalow was built on that lot. Mary had told this writer (Audrey) that John had told her how someday they would build and live in a small home next door when their family had all left. I remember visiting that summer (must have been 1950 or 1951) and sitting with Grandma on the sofa. Peering from the window of the big house, we watched as the work on the little house was happening, and she told me their dream.
Their dreams partly came true, for Mary eventually sold the big house and purchased the bungalow. And, that little "white house" came to be...as foretold in the gypsy's fortune of so long ago. How difficult this move must have been, leaving the place that was home for so many years and the place that had seen tears of joy and sorrow throughout her many memorable years there.
Age 84
Also said to be age 84.
Somehow, however, I can imagine how she must have felt the presence of her beloved John, for at least his dreams of their little white home had come true for her. One year, Sandra and I visited Grandma, and Barbara joined us. Grandma let us make fried bananas as a little experiment.
Here Mary was to live until that fateful day when she fell and fractured her hip. She was 87 years old, and her fate was now sealed, as the hip could not be repaired.
Age about 86
Being crippled and unable to walk unassisted much of the time, the small bungalow had to be sold, and Mary spent her declining years in a nursing home. When each of her children would visit, Mary would beg, "Please take me home. I want to go home." How each of them must have felt the pain of wanting to take their mother home, but realized the impossibility of the request, for Mary needed constant care. Again, the soothsayer's words of one who would live a long life and walk with a cane came to be.
Mary made her home and her family her life. She was the last surviving child of her MILLS family. This 5 ft. 4 in., gray headed, once blond, mother died the 29 of July in 1961 at the age of 91. She was buried on the birthday of her daughter, Heine. She was laid to rest at Forest Hill Cemetery in Piqua next to her beloved husband. She was at last able to "go home" to her heavenly home and be in peace with her loving and faithful husband, John, and her "little angels."
Mary's obituary and funeral notice appeared in the Piqua Daily Call on Monday, July 31, 1961.
Photo taken in 2006
Photo taken in 1935
Cemetery record at Forest Hill Cemetery, Piqua, Miami Co., OH shows the following:
- Catherine Mary6 LEHMANN
- Johanna "Jennie" Nora Francisca6 LEHMANN
- Albert "Al" Henry6 LEHMANN
- Leo "Lee" Martin6 LEHMANN
- Henrietta "Heine" Catherine6 LEHMANN
- Regina "Jean" Cecelia6 LEHMANN
- Martin "Mart" Michael6 LEHMANN
- Francis Henry6 LEHMANN
- Gerhard John6 LEHMANN
- Gertrude "Gert" Philomena6 LEHMANN
- Rita Marie Margaret6 LEHMANN
|
Story/Photo Contributors:
|