Hills, Phillip Sheridan

From Lane Co Oregon

Current revision as of 00:35, 22 September 2008

Phillip Sheridan Hills was born on July 17, 1865 in Jasper, Lane County, Oregon to Cornelius J. and Sophrona P. Hills. He died on March 20, 1951 in Coburg. He was buried on March 24 1951 in IOOF Cemetery, Coburg. He married Emma Russell on January 29 1886 in Jasper. His children were Sephrona Jane and Morris Silas.

[edit] 330 Years of Hills in America by Zola Covell-Salven

Personal information from Grandaughter / Juanita June Hack Awbrey

Sheridan, as he was always called, lived for many years on the farm and did a little "sawmilling" up on Hills Creek. In contrast to the other four brothers of the family, he had no driving ambition to do battle with the world. When it was necessary to resupply the family larder, he fished and hunted, but his great love was always the land and his livestock. Both he tended with loving care as he Iired on a portion of the old donation land claim.

Gentle, kind and compassionate, in early life he came enamored of a fiery, nervous and high strung young lady. Her name was Emma Russell and she was considered a beauty. In due time they were married and went to make their home on the land his father, Corneillus, had chosen in 1847.

Their two children were born there. Sheridan was a devoted family man, who met life on even terms, savored it and found it good. He quietly went about the business of making a living and was said never to have made an enemy. In his soft-spoken way ha wont about whatever was at hand and could always find something good to say about his neighbor.

Not so his small and energetic wife. Emma (whom he lovingly called "Muggy") Was busy as a humrningrird. She "bossed" Sherdie, as she called him relentlessly. It was "Sherdie, do this" and before he could possibly finish the first assignment, it was alway "Sherdie, hurry, hurry, I need this to be done right now." Her incessant demands never ceased and her patient husband smiled as he redoubled his efforts to meet her demanding schedule. He had great patience and never retumad an irritable word. He would just said, "Now, Muggy, give a fellow half a chance."

Sheridan, named for General Sherldan's dash to the sea, never sought ambitious goals and lived quietly until his mid-eighties. He had never heard of food stamps or Social Security. When it became difficult for him to drive his car, he reluctantly moved into an apartment. He hated the noise and the bustle, but he could still get his fingers in the brown earth and have a small garden.

When the 1950 pageant, for which Eugene was famous at that time, came along, it featured the Hills' family of pioneers. Sheridan was the only survivor of the original family at that time, and he was invited to be Grand Marshal of the great parade. He rode a horse for the Last time and gravely greeted his friends along the line of march.

To him it was the a thing to do, and he did not consider it a personal honor to be chosen to represent the man who had been his father and who had carved out his Donation Land Claim in 1847. With considerable dignity he rode a gentle horse at the front of the miles-long parade. Later he wondered if his friends might think he was getting "the B1G head." He was a humble man, and loved by his family and a host of friends. As a child, when we visited them I often wondered at his unusually big hands and feet. Now I know they wore to balance a heart of equal size, from which he gave generously and with joy and optimism. There was no pretense in his makeup and if he gave his word, a written document was not needed. He belonged to an era of unlocked doors and probably never owned a key or a lock in the more than 85 years that he lived. Were he alive today, because of his feeding every transient that came to his door, because of his trusting nature, he would be victimized and taken advantage of. He was the last of the true pioneers and would not fit into the modern world.

Hallie Hills Huntington