Viola A Tilton:
Benjamin Franklin Tilton was a widower pretty young and stayed with his daughters and my dad until he moved into a house in Glasco. He first stayed with Aunt Mate until she died, then he stayed with aunt Rete and then with us. When he lived by himself we thought we were being nice and bought him an oil cloth for his table but he wouldn’t eat off of it. Later when we went to see him and it was rolled and put in a corner and he was eating off of a news paper. He later moved into a Masonic home in Wichita where he died. He was married twice; his first wife died giving birth. He was married to my Grandma, Rebecca pain and they raised three children. She died of a hart attack when she was in her fifties. Grandpa was six feet tall, he ran a meat market. He was born in Illinois. Grandpa Roll was a farmer and also raised sheep. I think he had thirteen kids. He was from Illinois before moving to Kansas, he was a French Canadian. He was married to Amanda Askrin. Elmer Tilton, my dad was born December Twenty-First eighteen-hundred and sixty-three in Franklin Grove Illinois. He was married to Melissa Roll in Concordia Kansas. He died December twelve nineteen-hundred and forty and was buried in Glasco cemetery. Dad was a farmer then a carpenter and later on in life he was a meat cutter. He was an awfully good dad, I never remember getting a whipping from him, a cross word from him did more than a spanking from mother. One time Lela and I were fighting over the dishes and he shamed us by doing them himself, and we shore quit that fussing. He belonged to the Odd fellow Lodge for as long as I could remember. One time Lela and I were playing in the up stares when she smelled smoke and went down stares and saw that it was a fire. My sister had to go get dad and my brother; they were working about a mile away. The house burned down. One time my brother wanted to go fishing instead of school, he didn’t like school much and he refused to go so dad had to take him, he walked behind him all the way, the kids made fun of him for a long time after that. I remember as a kid for Christmas we would hang our stockings of course. One Christmas he couldn’t make it to town, it was storming awfully, so he filled our stockings with popcorn. Dad died after his stroke; He was an invalid for quite a while. Dad wasn’t quite six foot tall and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. Mothers name was Amanda Melissa Roll and she was born in Elba Iowa. She was born June twenty eighteen-hundred and sixty-five. She was the youngest of four. Mother was a little frail woman but she was the disciplinarian. My folks never went to church much but she made shore we went. Mother and dad danced a lot when they were younger. Mother was an awfully good cook, she thought me to cook and sew. She was Aunt Maggie to the nieces and nephews, and Maggie to dad; she didn’t care for her name. She died December eighteen nineteen-hundred and forty, just six days after Dad; they were buried together in Glasco Cemetery. She had a brother that road in the Texas Trail herds, and I remember Aunt Julie Brooks, I thought allot of her. Dad and Mother had four kids: Oral Wilber died as a baby, Clem my brother married Katy Boucher he had two kids, Otis Henry and Helen Viola who died as a baby; Otis was a nice man. Rita married Mike Dillon, she died in Glasco. Lela married Jarvis Melton and died in Kansas City. Clem and I got along well, he called me babe. Rita and I got along, Lela and I fought once in a while, we were close to the same age, but we got along as well. One time Lela wanted to go to the dance but Clem said she couldn’t, she was too made up. He told her to go and change but she refused so he left her home. I started school when I was five; I froze my toes walking to school and blood poison set in so I couldn’t go back to school. My best friend was Leta Shawl; we were just like sisters. One time we took the notion to walk to my sister’s house after Church, it was seven miles. My mother knew we were going but we didn’t tell Leta’s mother. Leta’s Mother was the Berry boys of the Dewy and Berry fight in Cloud County. Leta’s mother was there; they killed her dad and two brothers. Her folks were farmers and the Dewies were going to run them off. Grandma Berry fought that case in court for years and finally got a settlement. I was born in Iowa; the Indians came to see a white baby. Mother was scared of course but they meant no harm, they were just curious. My folks moved from Iowa to Illinois and then to Kansas, both of their folks lived in Glasco. Albert and I met because his aunt lived Delfus which is a little way from where I grew up. His mother told him and Lilly about the Tiltons living there so he and Lilly came to meet us the next time they came to visit his Aunt. We were married when I was nineteen and he was twenty-three. My family liked Albert all right; at least they didn’t have any objections. We lived in Collier where we ran a meat market but Albert didn’t like being in doors much, he was a farmer. Albert saw an ad in a paper about an irrigated farm in Colorado. John and Albert went to Colorado and thought the land looked good so they bought it. John never returned to Colorado. We had Darrel, Ray and Edith in Kansas and David Thelma and John in Colorado. We had some hard times starting out in Colorado and Albert had to work out some to make it; after we bought the cattle we made it all right. Edith was a sickly baby and Darrel had the croup really bad. Darrel had the prettiest curly hair; he could climb before he could walk. When he was a little guy he though I don’t know how he did it, he took the taps off that held the wheels on the wagon, Albert got down the road a little way and one of the wheels came off.

Albert W Tilton
My mother’s dad was John Howerth he came from England when he was a little boy, hey moved to Ohio. He married a woman by the name of Elizabeth Bright and they moved to Indiana. I think they had twelve; kids Sarah my mom was the oldest. I remember Aunt Suli, aunt Mate, aunt Vida, aunt Stella, and aunt Mini; they had a boy named Ira who died when he was seventy-nine. John was a farmer but he was the postmaster during the war. He and his wife died in Indiana. My dad was George Davis Tilton; he was named after his mothers folks, he was born in Ohio. Dad had three brothers in the war, David, William and John; John was the only one to return. My dad was fourteen so he was too young to go to the war, he wanted to go but they wouldn’t let him. His brother James was a store keeper, uncle James became a millionaire. My dad was a farmer; that was all he knew how to do. They came to Kansas because they wanted to move west. My moms name was Sarah Ellen Howerth, her and dad had six kids. Elmer, John Ira and Ella were born in Illinois or Indiana. Lilly and I were born in Trago County and that is where we went to school. Ira was a teacher, and than became a Lawyer. Ira lived to be 93, John lived to be 87, and Elmer lived to be 79.