Patrick Willis

1822-1889

Elizabeth Ann “Betsy Ann” Pittman

1827-1889

Contributed by Don Rivara

Note: This bio only references a brief visit to the California Gold Rush by various family members.

Patrick Willis and Elizabeth Ann “Betsy Ann” Pittman were the parents of Lucy Ann “Louisiana” Willis [1846-1926]. We know this from Patrick’s will executed in Mercer County, Missouri, after his death in 1889. We also know this from Louisiana’s death certificate in Spokane County, WA, in 1926. We also know it from the testimony of Patick’s grandchildren, who were alive when the author could interview them.

Patrick Willis was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on 15 May 1822. This information comes from a Bible sheet in the possession of his grandson Cecil Dell [1888-1975] in the early 1970’s. Patrick’s parents were William “Buck” Willis [1795-1878] and Elizabeth Kersey [abt..1800-abt. 1841]. L.D.S. records show that Elizabeth Kersey married William Willis on 30 April 1816 in Louisa County, Virginia, a county adjacent to Hanover.

Tax records of Hanover County do not show any established Willis family in the 1820’s; so it is believed that the family lived there but a short time. In the county records there are a couple of references to a “J. J. Willis.” In Hanover County, Virginia Chancery Wills and Notes, there is a listing of a John Williams and a John J. Willis who were administrators of securities in a legal matter. It is believed that this person’s name was John Joel Willis. In the 1810 U.S. Census of nearby King and Queen County, Virginia, adjacent to Hanover County, there are listings for a Joel Willis and a John Willis; the two family groups have exactly the same makeup. It is believed that this family was enumerated twice during that census, perhaps due to a move. The makeup of both families was this: 1 male 10-16 years of age; one male over 45 years of age; one female age 0-10; one female age 10-16; two females age 16-26; and one female age 26-45. It is also believed that in official matters, Mr. Willis used John J. or simply John Willis, but was commonly known as Joel Willis. It is also believed that this is the same Joel Willis who appears in the censuses of Claiborne County, Tennessee, in 1830. It is believed that Joel Willis [born between 1760 and 1764] was the grandfather of Patrick Willis.

It is doubtful that Patrick remembered living in Virginia because he left there at a very young age. The family moved to Claiborne County, Tennessee, in the middle 1820’s. The family of William Willis is shown there in the 1830 U.S. Census. That census shows one male age 30-40 [William]; one male age 10-15 [James]; one male age 5-9 [Patrick]; one male under 5; one female age 30-40 [Elizabeth Kersey Willis]; one female age 10-15; and one female age 5-9. It was in Claiborne County that Patrick spent his youth.

His mother, Elizabeth Kersey Willis, was still alive in the 1840 U.S. Census of Claiborne County, aged 40-49, but had died by 21 January 1842, when William married his second wife, Elzira “Elziry” Norton [aka. King]. Elzira was seventeen; Buck, forty-six. Patrick’s new stepmother was about three years younger than he. With his new wife, Buck started a second family that grew rapidly

. On 14 December 1845, in Claiborne County, Patrick married Elizabeth Ann [“Betsy Ann”] Pitman/Pittman. He was twenty-three, she eighteen. Betsy was born 26 November 1827 in Claiborne County, the daughter of James Pittman and Silvia Hurst. Betsy Ann’s Hurst grandparents were prominent landholders in Claiborne. The family attended the Springdale Baptist Church. Thomas Hurst, her grandfather, was a slave holder. His many siblings and their families made up a large block of the residents in Claiborne County. Today, a large percentage of Claiborne County is descended from the Hurst family.

With his mother gone and his father engrossed in his new family, Patrick became closely allied with his wife’s family, the Pittmans. Betsy Ann and her siblings were close, and the men the Pittman sisters married were companionable too. In 1849 the daughters were given part of the proceeds from the sale of some family land. Immediately Betsy Ann and Patrick Willis and their two children prepared to leave Tennessee by wagon. They were accompanied by Betsy’s sister’s family, Nancy and James True and their children. Also accompanying the group was Betsy’s seventeen-year-old brother, Salem Pittman. The group emigrated together to Mahaska County, Iowa. The siblings left behind their mother, Silvia Hurst Pittman, who was living with her daughter Emeline Allen's family. Betsy Ann's grandmother, Silvia Breeding Hurst [abt.1767-1854], was also still alive at the time.

Patrick’s brother, James Willis, was then living in Illinois, but by the time of the 1850 Census was living in Wappelo County, Iowa, close to where Patrick was living. On 18 August 1850, the census-taker listed the Willis family in Mahaska County: #167 Patrick Willis, age 28, born VA; Elizabeth Willis, age 21 [should be 22], born TN; Lucy A. Willis, age 3, born TN; and James M. Willis, age 2, born IA, and the baby Margaret V. Willis, age 6 months. James Monroe Willis, who was always called by his middle name, was to be the Willises’ only son. By birth, injury, or illness, Monroe had a crippled leg.

About 1852 the clan moved on to Mercer County, Missouri, within a couple of miles from the Iowa border. The attraction there must have been Aunt Sarah "Sally" Hurst Harper [1789-1892]. She and her thirteen children lived near Princeton. She was the eldest sister of Silvia Hurst Pittman. A John Willis of Mercer County may have been an uncle of Patrick’s; if so, that would have been another attraction to the area. The families seem to have thrived here. Soon two more of Betsy’s siblings, Olive Estes and Mary Breeding, joined the Willis-Hurst-Pitman clan in Mercer County in 1853. The families lived astraddle the Missouri-Iowa state line and would spread on both sides of the border.

 In the early 1850's many people who had gone to California's gold fields were returning home, many with sacks of nuggets and gold dust. The brothers-in-law Patrick Willis, George Estes, James True, and Jackson Breeding, headed west. They were to be gone two years, 1853-1855, in which the women had to tend to their homes and families without their men. The farms had to have been either leased out or allowed to lie fallow, but the women would certainly have had to maintain large gardens for family produce. It was during this period that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, that threw neighboring Kansas into civil war.

When the brothers-in-law agreed that it was time to return home from California, George Estes chose to remain in California, saying that he wanted to find a little more gold before returning. Later a man appeared at the Estes farm and told Olive that he and George had been returning from California when George became ill. The visitor said that he had left George in a St. Louis hospital. [Apparently the story was that they had come by ship because St. Louis is east of Mercer County.] George never returned, and the family could find no record of his ever having been a patient in a St. Louis hospital. The family theorized that the visitor had murdered George for his gold, but why would the man visit the Estes home if he had murdered George? My theory is that George did not want to return to Olive. Her photo makes her look like a shrew. The hospital story was a ruse for him to his wife, making her think he had died. No one knows for sure what happened to George; Olive later married Alonzo Work.

       The brothers-in-law returned to a region now in political upheaval. Patrick began a series of land purchases with the gold he brought back. On May 2, 1855, Mercer County Deed Book C, page 535, shows that Patrick purchased from Daniel Barthlow the west 1/2 of the northeast quarter of Section 32, Township 67, Range 25, 80 acres. On April 4, 1857, in Deed Book D, page 234, it shows that Patrick purchased from Joseph Toney a four-acre parcel in the southeast corner of the southeast quarter of Section 33, Township 67, Range 25. It was probably on this land that the Willis School was built in 1859. On November 3, 1857, Patrick purchased from his brother-in-law, Salem Pittman, through a quitclaim deed, the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 4, Township 66, Range 25, 40 acres, recorded in Deed Book E, page 343. These parcels lay in the northwest corner of Mercer County between Saline, MO, and Pleasanton, Decatur County, Iowa.
       The Willis School was built approximately one and one-quarter miles south of the town of Pleasanton, Decatur County, Iowa, in Mercer County, Missouri. The family lived very close to the Missouri-Iowa state line. Some family members lived in Iowa and some in Missouri, all close to one another. Among those who contributed land, labor, and materials to build the school were Patrick Willis, Kirby McGrew [father of Monroe Willis' wife Melinda], James Perkypile [He died enroute to OR with the Willises], and Adam Harper [one of Aunt Sally's family]. It was not a subscription school; anyone could attend. The building had two small windows on the east side and two small windows on the west side. Under the windows, a writing board extended the entire length of the building. The seats were made of split logs with wooden pins for legs. They were placed so the students faced north. The door was in the south wall. The first teacher was Alfred Brand, a new arrival from Indiana. All of Patrick and Elizabeth's children would have attended this school. The school was sold in 1955 to a private party and the students were consolidated into the county school system.

The 1850’s were turbulent times in the United States. Missouri was a slave state, but nearby Iowa was not. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, Missouri exploded, its citizens become involved in “Bloody Kansas,” in both the pro and anti-slavery forces. Betsy’s brother Salem was so incensed at the possibility of Kansas becoming a slave state that he fraudulently voted in the Kansas election although he was a resident of Missouri. Men such as he were called “border jumpers.”

During these hectic years, the Willises had four more daughters: Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Willis, 1 May 1853; Amanda Arzina Willis, 20 May 1856; Melissa “Lissa” Willis, 2 May 1858; and Sarah Ann “Sade” Willis, 20 June 1860. Yet another daughter was born during the Civil War: Emily Frances “Emma” Willis, 16 December 1863.

In January of 1860 word was received that Silvia Hurst Pittman had died from typhoid fever. She hadn't been an old woman, just fifty-four. It hadn't been very many years since Silvia's own mother had died. 1860 was the year of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and the secession of South Carolina. Claiborne County, Tennessee, being in a border state, would have a tumultuous four years with families split in their loyalties. Silvia was fortunate in that she didn't have to live through those violent years.

The 1860 Census was taken in Lindley Township, Mercer County, Missouri. Household #1,089 was that of Patrick Willis, age 36, born VA. Other members of the household were Elizabeth Willis, wife, age 33, born TN; Louisiana Willis, daughter, age 14, born TN; James M. Willis, son, age 12, born TN; M.V. Willis, daughter, age 10; born IA; Mary E. Willis, age 7, born MO; Amanda Willis, daughter, age 4, born MO; and Melissa Willis, daughter, age 2, born MO. The census showed that the Willises owned $2,000 worth of real estate and $1,000 in personal property. The plight of the Willises during the impending war would diminish their wealth. Patrick’s brother James Willis and Betsy’s sisters’ families are nearby, as was the large family of Harpers.

When the Civil War began, Salem Pittman enlisted in the Union Army in Company M, 6th Missouri L. M. Cavalry. Patrick and Betsy Ann had seven daughters and one lame son. The extreme violence in Missouri toward non-combatants by both sides of the controversy led the Willises to emigrate to Oregon in the spring of 1864. Among those in their party were Betsy Ann’s sisters Nancy True and Mary Breeding. Betsy Ann's sister Olive Pittman Estes, again married [to Alonzo Work], did not chose to leave Missouri, but her son, Will Estes, sixteen, unhappy with his stepfather and stepsiblings, chose to go with his aunts and uncles. Olive refused permission for her next-oldest son, Jim Estes, fourteen, to go with his aunts, but after the wagons left, Jim ran away and joined them at Council Bluffs, Iowa, the jumping-off town for the Oregon-bound population of Iowa and other points north. There were also some others in the wagon train, including a Bill Willis [supposedly no relation], James Perkypile and his daughter, Juliette, married to storekeeper John Stanley, and Enoch Williams. Patrick was elected captain. Will Estes would live out most of his life in Oregon, but Jim Estes was to return to Missouri. He lived to be ninety-three and left his memoirs of the journey across the plains. They appeared in the Leon, Iowa Journal-Reporter on Thursday, April 27, 1933, and again fifty years later on April 28, 1983.

James N. Estes, who will soon celebrate his eighty-fourth birthday anniversary, is the oldest resident of Pleasanton, the place where he lived when only Indians roamed the prairie. He has witnessed the moving of the first post office, watched the town build and grow, and has served as its marshal, justice of the peace, and mayor. His stepfather named the town. Mr. Estes had lived in the community continuously since he was a child with the exception of a few months spent west. When three he came with his parents from Claiborne County, Tenn. in a covered wagon drawn by an ox team to Iowa. They settled just across the line in Missouri. With the gold rush on in California Mr. Estes' father and Patrick Willis, with others from that vicinity, went to California. Mr. Willis returned in two years, Mr. Estes' father remained owing to the mining claims he had accumulated. However, within the next year he was able to sell out and accompanied by a man from Kentucky started on the homeward trek but never reached there. Later investigations led relatives to believe the man from Kentucky had robbed Estes and did away with him. Mr. Estes' mother, left with two children, wove cloth, made clothing and did various kinds of work to care for the children. A few years passed and she married Alonso Works [sic]. At the age of nine Mr. Estes was put out to the home of a Mr. Fulton and worked there until he was fifteen. About that time his brother Will made plans to accompany his uncle, Patrick Willis, on his second trip out west. James did not receive permission from his mother to go and had to remain home. The men left with their ox teams, covered wagons, and supplies. But three days later James ran off from his mother and started out walking to catch his brother and the others. He knew they would have to wait in Council Bluffs for others to join them as the government stopped all immigrants until a large number were banded together so that they might travel with less danger from the attacks of Indians. In the group with Patrick Willis and the two boys were Mr. Willis' children, including the late Mrs. W. O. Foxworthy, Monroe Willis, and Mandy Emmons. James caught up with the Willis family at Council Bluffs and drove the ox team for them. Considerable trouble was encountered on their trip with the Indians stealing their horses. Mr. Estes recalls the many nights when he was detailed to duty with another man to lie out and guard the horses. "In those days," says Mr. Estes, "The horses could smell Indians and when the Indians were near they would hover around the guards. They would walk over us and around us but never hurt or touched us. The coyotes often made them nervous too."

       In Oregon he chopped wood for boats and earned enough money to travel back to Salt Lake City, Utah, and there he fell in with a mule team. After leaving Salt Lake City, he learned that he was with Morgan's men from Morgan's gang, and a few men from Quantrill's gang, who were masking as immigrants.

Jim's daughter, Vee Estes Dowling [1889-1995], who died two weeks shy of her 106th birthday, also left a written account of the stories told to her by her father. The author met her in 1975, and she verbally gave the same account:

When my father was fourteen, Patrick Willis…started across the plains to Oregon. My father's older brother Will went with him. My father wanted to go, but his mother wouldn't give her consent. He told his mother that he was going to Decatur [Iowa], a nearby town, but he ran away and caught up with another uncle, Jackson Breeding, where he joined their train. [Apparently the Breedings started a little after the Willises with plans to meet in Council Bluff.]

There was quite a train by this time and they followed the "Old Oregon" trail. Uncle Patrick, who was their leader, chose the places where they camped for the night. At one place in Nebraska there was a nice little spot where some insisted would be a nice place to camp for the night, but Uncle Patrick decided to camp on higher ground. That night there was a cloudburst and another wagon train that had camped in the lower area were almost obliterated. The wagons were washed into the Platte River, all but one which was bolted down. This wagon belonged to the son-in-law of the leader of that train. He saved the life of his wife but all the rest of the women and all of the children under sixteen were drowned. The woman who was saved had lost her baby and my father said she wore a black sunbonnet and never spoke a word the rest of the way. They saved what they could and went on with Uncle Patrick's train.

The following is from Jim Estes himself. It is in the possession of his descendants:

Early one morning, before the camp had broken up, a band of Indians swooped down upon us driving away nine of the horses. The horses wandered off about a mile and one of Leroy Goins' boys and I went after them. I looked up on the bluff and saw an Indian standing up straight. I told the boy to look up and the Indian dropped. About that time the Indians swooped down out of the canyon and drove the horses before us. That was the last we ever saw of those horses. The next morning after the Indians had stolen our horses, two Indians came circling down out of the brush. Not too far from us a widow had a mule team hobbled together. The hobbles had been taken off and the mules driven off. The woman's brother took after the Indians, thinking it was one of our men. He discovered it was Indians and shot two of them with the repeating rifle he was carrying. They shot him through the larynx with an arrow. The arrow had a spear on it. We all thought he would die and they just loaded him into the wagon. They discovered when he shaved his beard that the arrow had gone straight through his larynx.

We had only two horses and a pony left with us. The Indians attacked us about seventy-five miles west of Laramie. The soldiers were stationed there, but before they could do anything, they had to get orders from Washington.

We traveled on the north side of the Platte River where the grass had all been eaten, but it was green on the other side. Our outfit stood looking, wishing they could get the cattle across. Uncle Patrick told them if they could furnish a pony, he would furnish a boy. While the cattle ate, I lay down and rested and started back about midnight. The stream was full of big rocks and the current was so swift that it was hard for the pony to keep his footing. I held to his mane and sometimes went clear under. I was thoroughly wet and hungry. When we crossed the Cascades, I drove ahead. All of the wagons turned over except ours. When we went down big Laurel Hill, I drove four yoke of cattle--three yokes behind and one on the front axle. It was about a half mile down and the trees showed where the ropes had been tied to them.

Patrick and Betsy Ann Willis' granddaughter, Rose Cooper Goodrich [1875-1960], told the author one detail about the journey that does not appear elsewhere. Her mother, Lucy Ann "Louisiana" Willis Cooper [1846-1926], said that there was a man with the wagon train who foolishly shot at some Indians and received an arrow in the leg. Later the wound became gangrenous and needed to be amputated. The men held him down while another sawed off the diseased leg without the benefit of pain-killers, and he was put into his wagon and the wagons rolled on. [Was this a corruption of the arrow in the throat story?]

Kermuth Carrington [1914-?] of Saratoga, CA, and his cousin Charles Henderson of Pasco, WA, descendants of Salem Pittman, in the 1960’s told of Oregon Trail stories passed down their branch of the family. An Enoch Williams and a Bill Willis, probably a kinsman, and their families were among Patrick Willis' party. Most of the children rode on horses. The group had one wagon of meat and one of flour. Had they run out of flour along the trail, it would have cost them $16 for a hundred-pound barrel of flour at the forts along the way, an exorbitant price in those days. Indians could be seen perched on the bluffs watching the travelers. At Fort Bridger some members of Patrick's party became ill with a fever. John R. Stanley lost his father-in-law, James Perkypile, and his wife Juliette Perkypile Stanley. Stanley would later marry Nancy True's daughter, Emaline True when they arrived in Oregon. Somewhere along the trail a daughter of Patrick and Betsy Ann, either Mandy or Lizzie, fell off a wagon and was injured. She was taken to a doctor at one of the forts along the trail when they reached there.

Vee Estes Dowling told me in 1975 that at the crossing of a large river, Betsy Ann was riding in a wagon driven by her crippled son, Monroe. Midstream, when the current began to tilt the wagon back and forth precariously, Betsy Ann became frightened and called out to have the men rescue her and Monroe. [Monroe probably couldn't swim due to his disability.] The two were put on horses to continue their journey across.

The husband of Betsy Ann's sister Nancy True, James True, had a drinking problem. He became mean when he drank. At Fort Walla Walla, James was able to purchase liquor, and he got drunk--and mean. He beat his wife with a bull whip. She later divorced him.

Arriving in Oregon, the Willises probably settled in Yamhill County because it was there, in the county seat of Lafayette, that their eldest daughter, Lucy Ann “Louisiana” Willis, married John Shepherd Cooper [1838-1901] in January of 1865. During the time the Willises spent in Oregon, Patrick and Betsy Ann became grandparents in late 1865 when Lucy Ann gave birth to a son, James Patrick Willis, on November 2. As the first grandchild, the baby was probably coddled by his grandparents and aunts. But the boy and his mother came down with dysentery or the cholera in October of 1866, and the baby quickly dehydrated and died. Lucy Ann, pregnant with her second child, survived.

Betsy Ann did not like Oregon and its rainy weather. After the Civil War ended, she lobbied to return to Missouri, but then the Oglala Sioux under Chief Red Cloud were at war with the whites threatening travelers on the Bozeman and Oregon trails. In 1866 or 1867 the Willises, minus Lucy Ann, returned to Missouri. Due to the Indian threat, the wagons had to be accompanied by a military escort. Separating from their daughter with such a distance to lie between them had to be wrenching. Lucy Ann's baby, a daughter, was born on April 7, 1867. She was named Elizabeth Ann Cooper for her grandmother.

About this time, the Pittman sisters also separated. The Trues moved south to Lake County, California, James' drinking probably having alienated Nancy's family from him. Jackson Breeding and his wife Mary Pittman Breeding moved at first to Umatilla County, Oregon, near Pendleton. They were there during the 1870 Census. About 1875 they moved to Morrow County, near the town of Heppner.

The 1870 U.S. Census of Lindley Township, Mercer County, Missouri, Household #97 shows Patrick Willis, age 47, born West Virginia [sic], farmer, $1,600 worth of real estate,, and $400 of personal property; Elizabeth Willis, 42, born TN; Elizabeth Willis, 17, born MO; Amanda Willis, 14, born MO; Melissa Willis, 12, born MO; Emily Willis, age 6, born MO; James M. Willis, 22, born TN; married in April; $550 in personal property; Malinda Willis, age 20, born IN. Malinda was Monroe's new wife.

Not much else is known of the Willises' lives in the 1870's. Presumably they busied themselves with their farm work as Monroe and Melinda provided them with four new grandchildren. In letters from Oregon, the Willises learned of Lucy Ann’s giving birth to three more children that decade. On April 15, 1879, the Willises' daughter Liz married Oliver Foxworthy, who would continue his studies after his marriage to become first a teacher then a doctor and mayor of the town of Leon, Decatur County, Iowa. The Willis family had photographs taken that year to send to Louisiana in Washington Territory. It had been twelve years since she had seen any members of her family and had asked them to have photographs made so she could see what everyone looked like.

The 1880 Census showed the Willises still in Lindley Township in Household #211. Patrick was listed as age 58, farmer, born VA, father born VA, mother born VA. Elizabeth was listed as age 52, born TN, father born North Carolina, mother born Tennessee [should say Virginia]. Their only children living at home were Sarah Willis, 19, born MO, father born VA, mother born TN, and Emma Willis, 16, with the same information.

In 1882 Patrick purchased a parcel described as the east 1/2 of Lot 2 northwest, Section 4, Township 66, Range 25, and 3 acres in the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 33, Township 67, Range 25.

The Willises were saddened to hear of the death of Louisiana's oldest surviving child, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Ann Cooper, on January 12, 1884, from diabetes. The girl, called "Sis" by the family, had been named for her grandmother. Probably to uplift Louisiana's spirits, it was decided that she would make a trip on the newly opened Northern Pacific transcontinental railroad after the baby she was expecting was old enough to travel. She would not be bringing any of her children except the baby. The baby, Zelda Jane Cooper, was born on Leap Year Day, February 29, 1884, and Louisiana arrived in Missouri a couple of months later. It had been seventeen years since she had seen her family.

Louisiana was anxious to see all of her family. She went visiting at Aunt Sallie Harper's home and the homes of all of her siblings and cousins. She had a photograph taken of the baby in the border town of Lineville, IA, so that her parents would have something to remember. She must have expressed amazement at all the changes that had taken place in Missouri in those intervening twenty years since she had left there in 1864. She talked a great deal about her life in the Palouse Country of Eastern Washington, and her unmarried sister, Sade, 24, decided to return with Louisiana to Washington. This no doubt assuaged Louisiana's sadness at parting with her family, but it must have caused some remorse in her parents to lose yet another daughter to the West. The parting at the railroad station was the last the Willises would see of these two daughters. Letters came from Washington Territory telling how Sade was teaching school and then about her marriage to store keeper James Dell, on May 21, 1885. Later that year Louisiana had to report that her daughter Rose Cooper, 10, had come down with the whooping cough and had to be sent away to a midwife's shack to keep from infecting her other children. But the baby Zelda was already infected and died on August 22.

It was that year, 1885, that the Willises' youngest daughter "Emma" married Gold Elmore. Grandchildren were being born fairly regularly now, and Patrick and Betsy could be pleased that they had lost only one of their eight children, although they had lost several grandchildren by then. On August 12, 1888, Emma's daughter, Iva Elmore, 1 1/2 died. That September Aunt Sally Harper marked her 99th birthday, and the Harper clan began to talk about a big celebration for her next birthday.

1889 dawned and Aunt Sally still appeared vigorous and intent on being there for her centennial. On February 18, one of Monroe's twin sons, Ray Willis, died at the age of four months. In August, at the age of sixty-one, Betsy Ann became ill and died on August 15, the month before Aunt Sally's celebration. The following month Monroe's oldest daughter, Hettie, died at the age of nineteen on September 11, 1889. Patrick probably made it to Aunt Sallie's birthday party on September 27 with a heavy heart. On November 18, a second child of Emma's, six-month old Cecil Elmore died. Emma had no other children. The year had been hard on Patrick. The following day the sixty-seven year-old Patrick died, November 19, 1889. On the same day in a far-off village named Camere Nuovo, in Italy, Teresa Giordano was born. One day she would cross the Atlantic to the United States.

Patrick and Betsy share a tombstone at Freedom Cemetery, 1 ½ miles north of Saline, Mercer County, Missouri, and three miles south of the Iowa state line. The estate gave each of the Willis children $211.08 in May of 1892.

The Children of Patrick and Elizabeth Pitman Willis

[1] LUCY ANN “LOUISIANA” WILLIS, our ancestor, was born 6 November 1846, in Claiborne County, Tennessee. While her parents were living in Yamhill County, Oregon, 1864-1867, she met John Shepherd Cooper [1838-1901]. They were married at the courthouse in Lafayette, OR, on 31 January 1865. The couple settled on Grand Island, an island form by the Willamette River and Lambert Slough. John’s father lived across the slough on the west side of the Willamette River, but two of his sisters’ families lived on the island also. In December 1874 and January 1875, the family moved to Whitman County, Washington, settling between the small towns of Diamond and St. John. In 1888 the family moved into the town of Oakesdale. There John died in 1901. Louisiana rented out their home and went to work as the housekeeper for a bachelor sharecropper who was farming her sister Amanda’s land. After that she lived with some nieces but then moved to Spokane to live with her daughter Emma Cloyd Elliott. She died 28 May 1926 in Spokane and was buried there. There were seven children, four of whom lived to adulthood: Lilia McClure 1869-1959; Enoch Cooper 1871-1957; Rose Hodgson Goodrich 1875-1960; and Emma Cloyd Elliott 1881-1978. Her full biography is elsewhere in this work.

[2] JAMES MONROE WILLIS was called “Monroe” by the family. He was named after his uncle James Monroe Willis [1817-after 1880], who was born during the presidency of James Monroe. Monroe was born 6 February 1848, in Claiborne County, Tennessee, the only son of Patrick Willis and Elizabeth Pittman among their eight children. Somehow Monroe came to have a crippled leg and was handicapped by this. After his sister Lucy Ann married while the family was in Oregon, Monroe was the oldest child among those in the Missouri-Iowa locus. In April of 1870 he married Melinda McGrew [1850-1892]. Together they had nine children. Monroe became the postmaster of Pleasanton, Decatur County, Iowa, just across the Missouri state line from where his parents lived. In 1892 Melinda foolishly walked barefoot in the snow, caught pneumonia, and died from the disease. Monroe’s teenaged daughters were able to help in the care of their younger siblings while Monroe worked. Monroe was mayor of Pleasanton according to the court records of June 15, 1915-January 22, 1916, but in his old age, he lived in the home of Gold Elmore, whose first wife, Emma Willis, had been Monroe’s sister. Monroe died in Pleasanton about 1924 and presumably is buried there. His children were Amer, Ethel, Ola, Effie Jane, Marion [male], Blanche, Vern, Elga, and McGrew. McGrew lived in Hollywood and was a prominent screen writer.

[3] MARGARET V. WILLIS was born in February of 1850 in Mahaska County, Iowa. She probably died before 1870 and was not married. She was not listed in the 1870 Census, and no record of a marriage has been found. She was not mentioned in the 1889 will of her father.

[4] MARY ELIZABETH “LIZZIE” WILLIS was born 1 May 1853 in Mercer County, Missouri. On 13 April 1879, she married Oliver Foxworthy [1855-1935]. She was a teacher and worked while her husband attended medical school. He began his practice in Weldon, Decatur County, Iowa, but in 1902 moved to nearby Leon, Iowa, after completing more medical studies. Oliver was later mayor of the town of Leon also. Elizabeth died 3 October 1929 in Leon. She was buried there. The couple had one child, Ollie Elizabeth Foxworthy[1896-1995], who was married to Thomas Kendall Murrow, a judge in Des Moines. They had three or four children.

[5] AMANDA ARZINA “MANDY” WILLIS was born 20 May 1856, in Mercer County, Missouri. When she was eight, the family moved to Yamhill County, Oregon, to avoid the Civil War. Three years later the family returned to Missouri. Amanda became a teacher and married Henry Emmons [1856-1906] in the late 1880’s. Soon after her marriage, both of her parents died in 1889. She was pregnant at the time with her daughter Theodosia “Theo” Marie Emmons, who was born 3 February 1890. On 12 April 1894, a son, Schuyler Emmons, was born. The Emmonses moved to Whitman County, Washington, in the early 1900’s and bought a large farm. On 2 November 1905, eleven year old Schuyler died of “yellow jaundice” [hepatitis]. Soon afterward, in 1906, Henry Emmons died. About 1910 Theo eloped with her first cousin, McGrew Willis [1889-1983], son of Mandy’s brother, Monroe Willis. McGrew had made it known to his cousin, Vee Estes Aiken, that he was merely after Aunt Amanda’s money. Theo was Amanda’s only heir, and Amanda was well off. McGrew convinced Theo to move to Southern California, where he had ambitions of entering the film industry. Soon afterward, Mandy moved to Hollywood and rented her Whitman County farm to sharecropper Henry George. Mandy’s sister, Louisiana Willis, served as Henry George’s housekeeper to support herself. Theo’s marriage was childless, and the couple divorced in Hollywood, CA, in the 1920’s. A descendant of McGrew from a later marriage sent this news article about the divorce:

Wife, Left As “Drag,”Is Granted Divorce

Woman, Not Greatness, Was Husband’s Goal, is Her Charge

Married life was apparently a drag on the ambition of F. McGrew Willis, Scenario writer. He wanted to be free and Mrs. Willis objected to being set aside, she says, but her appeal was fruitless. Mr. Willis left, she declared, and for some time she stayed on at the hotel, hoping he would return. Yesterday, Judge Walton J. Wood gave her a divorce on the grounds of desertion. The evidence showed there had been a property settlement.

“There is no community property except an automobile, and he has that,” she told the court. “I wanted him to stay, but he deserted me for another woman.” A witness testified that Mr. Willis declared he was held down by marriage. “By being free he hoped to become a great man,” he said. In Mrs. Willis’ original divorce action, she named another woman. The amended suit charged simple desertion. Attorney S. S. Miller represented Mr. Willis.

Mandy lived in Hollywood near Theo for many years [1924-1941]. She died in Hollywood following a stroke, on 21 October 1941, at the age of eighty-five. For a couple of years in the late 1930’s, Amanda’s niece, Cloyd Cooper Elliott, lived with her in Hollywood. Theo, who married Edward Nittinger after her divorce from McGrew, lived in San Jacinto, CA, for many of her later years. She died in May 1981, apparently in Irvine, CA, at age ninety-one. There are no living descendants of Amanda Willis Emmons.

[6] MELISSA ‘LISSA’ WILLIS was born 2 May 1858, in Mercer County, Missouri. In 1880 she married John Inman in Mercer County. In the early 1890’s the Inmans joined Lissa’s sisters in Whitman County, Washington. Lissa and John Inman had two children, Orrie and Grace. Orrie, a boy, died as a child from scarlet fever. Grace married a man named Hutchinson and died in a rest home in Colfax, Whitman County, WA, in the 1960’s. She had no children of her own, only stepchildren. Melissa, called “Lissa” by the family, died about 1908. John Inman was still alive in 1926. This line is extinct. Melissa was rather homely.

[7] SARAH ANN “SADE” WILLIS was born 20 June 1860, in Mercer County, Missouri. In 1884 she was yet unmarried and accompanied her sister, Louisiana Cooper, to Whitman County, WA. There she taught briefly before marrying St. John storekeeper James Monroe Dell [1855-1916]. We know that one of her students was Louisiana’s nephew, James Paul “Pearl” Lumison, because we have a merit card to him signed by her. She probably taught all of the Lumison and Cooper children at the time. [including our ancestor Rose Ella Cooper 1875-1960].

Sade was better looking than most of her sisters and more spirited. On 8 February 1897, at age thirty-six, she died in childbirth and was buried at the St. John Cemetery. The child also died. She had three other children: daughters Vera Delanie Dell [1886-1965] and Flossie Dell [1890-1970], who never married; and a son Cecil Dell [1888-1976]. Cecil managed a J. C. Penny store in Billings, Montana.

[8] EMILY FRANCES “EMMA” WILLIS was born 16 December 1863, in Mercer County, Missouri, and was a baby when the Willises crossed the plains to Oregon in 1864. She was only about three years old when the family returned to Missouri.. About 1885 Emma married Gold Elmore [24 Nov. 1851-2 March 1924]. It is believed that Emma was a consumptive. The Elmores had two children: Iva Elmore [13 February 1887-12 August 1888] and Cecil Elmore [26 May 1889-18 November 1889]. Emma died 20 March 1891, at age twenty-seven, and was buried in the Freedom Cemetery. Gold then married Luella Mae Henderson [1875-1963] and had another family. He and Emma’s brother Monroe were close friends. When they were old, Monroe lived with Gold and his family in the town of Pleasanton, Decatur County, Iowa. There were no descendants who survived Emma. She, Gold, and Luella are all buried at the Freedom Cemetery north of Saline, Mercer County, MO. [Where Patrick and Elizabeth Pittman Willis are buried]. Our Aunt Emma Cloyd Cooper Elliott [1881-1978] said she was named for this aunt.

[Patrick Willis and Elizabeth Ann Pitman > Lucy Ann “Louisiana Willis Cooper > Rose Ella Cooper Hodgson Goodrich > Lois Belle Hodgson Serrano Menefee > Mildred Doreen Serrano Rivara > Donald Lee Rivara > Rainie Anne Rivara > Salman and Rehan Saeed]