Chapter 1: Lilly Family Background

Since I have often regretted that my father (Percy Anthony Lilly, Sr.) left no written record of his life, my own failure to query him, and the consequent loss of his experiences, I have thought to put that kind of information in writing. I will not try to do genealogy, but to tell what I remember.

My original Lilly ancestor1 emigrated from England in 1730. He reportedly was studying for holy orders in the Anglican Church. During his studies, he converted to Catholicism. Further, he married a Mrs. Ann Price and they thereafter immigrated to what they thought was Maryland. But it turned out later when Mason and Dixon ran their line that they actually settled in Pennsylvania. Some of their offspring emigrated west and ended in around Bardstown, Kentucky, which is quite a Catholic Community.2

My grandfather, Joseph E. Lilly, was born and raised (until about age sixteen) in Nelson County, Kentucky. Five of his sisters were sent from home to Saint Vincent’s Academy in Waverly, Union County, at the beginning of the Civil War.3 They went in a wagon with a Negro man. One sister died en route. This was a journey of about 300 miles, give or take. Nelson County had a heavy concentration of Roman Catholics, as did Waverly. At the end of the war my grandfather also went to Saint Vincent’s, where he worked as a field hand, St. Vincent’s being a self-supporting entity. These five sisters being sent to St Vincent's Academy is the reason my grandfather ended up in Morganfield, Union County. One of the sisters, Julia, married a man last name Waller and stayed in the area. The other sisters lived elsewhere but kept in contact with our family.

An anecdote of his civil war years: forces from both North and South were sweeping through the area, cleaning out whatever foods, supplies, horses, mules, etc., they could find from the Lilly farm. At one point, grandfather visited a union camp on a teenage forage mission. On the way home, as he was running on top of a stone wall, he was mistaken for an enemy and was shot in the leg by a union soldier. When I knew him that bullet was still in his leg; he could show it to me and you could feel it under his skin.

He was reputedly a mischievous youngster. He told me once in response to my question that his schooling stopped at the Third Reader (though I have no evidence, I think this was about the fifth grade). He also told me that the Shawnee Trail over which the Shawnee Indians came down from Illinois into Kentucky to hunt ran through my uncle’s farm. There were many arrowheads to be found.

At some point, my grandfather apprenticed himself to a medical doctor and later attended medical school at the University of Louisville for one or two years. At any rate, he became a doctor and practiced for some years. His wife (Maud Parsons), who was his second cousin once removed, called him either “Dr. Lilly” or “Cousin Joe!” Some time or other he ceased practicing medicine, perhaps because he thought it ineffectual. In later life, he resisted calling a doctor for himself.

Joseph and Maud Parsons Lilly, circa 1930

He was elected to the state legislature, serving several terms. He was widely known in the county and seemed to know everybody and his history. He was humorous and entertaining (my grandmother was neither).4 He later became a judge in Union County—I think something like a police judge. In those days, you did not have to be a lawyer to be a judge.

They lived for some years in Uniontown, a river town of some importance in its day because of the river, and then later in Morganfield, which gained importance because of the railroads. Two lines served Morganfield: “Louisville and Nashville” and “Illinois Central.” It was the coal mines that brought the railroads.

The earlier statement about my grandmother was unkind. She was a mother to me from age ten and taught me manners, deportment, cleanliness, and a host of other things at an age at which she had already earned a rest (she was in her sixties at this point).

A black woman, Bett Burns, lived and worked for us nearly her whole life. She was left with my grandfather when he worked as a doctor when she was three years old. My grandmother raised her, though she did not go to school or get any education. She could not read as I remember. She was included in family photos and I was close to her. She lived with my aunt, “Sister,” after my grandparents had passed away. She is buried in the family plot.

Joseph E. Lilly, Joseph Jr., Thomas Lilly, Martha Matilda Lilly, Catherine “Sister” Lilly,

Percy A. Lilly, Sr., Harry Lilly, Martha Ellen Clark Lilly,5 & Bett Burns, 1890s.

My grandmother’s family owned/ran a hotel in town called Parson House. My grandfather ran it for a while. Later, the hotel was run by my Great Aunt Blanche Parsons Bowen (my grandmother's sister).

There was a colored town on the outskirts of Morganfield in the direction of Sister’s farm. They had their own school. OC Kelly, a black man, ran a store there. I said something negative about OC Kelly once, probably race-related. My grandfather came down on me hard telling me show respect for OC Kelly. I could sell catfish to folks in the colored town.

I have no remembrance and little knowledge of my maternal grandparents. I never knew this grandmother as she died at thirty-six years old in 1903. My mother was estranged from her father, Samuel Halstead Taylor. I do not know what he did for a living, nor do I know what my grandmother did. He was a protestant and my grandmother, Marie Trapnel Mattingly, was a Catholic. I believe that this religion issue was one of the reasons for their break-up and their continuing battle. On the other hand, my sister Jeanne reminded me that he had killed a man and served a term in prison. Perhaps—more than likely—he was an abusive husband.

They had three children—Paul, William, and my mother, Nannie Allin Taylor. My mother was born in Boxville, Kentucky, which is a small farming crossroads about five miles southeast of Morganfield. At some point, the boys were in an orphans’ home, and Marie put my mother in a convent in Dubuque, Iowa, hiding her from Samuel. The boys he found and took. My mother had no good feelings for her father. William (Uncle Bill) Taylor was her favorite brother. Paul seemed to be more his father’s son. I saw him only once and have no recollections of him. Bill visited us at least once, and we visited him in Waterloo, Iowa. He worked for the railroad in a baggage car carrying mail and other valuables. His title was “baggage master,” I think. He and my mother were humorous, sweet and lovable.

My mother had immensely more drive. She organized and put on plays in the Morganfield courthouse. I remember one being a minstrel show with my father in black face playing a tambourine. I also remember her doing arty things with a group of women such as painting still lifes on wooden bowls. From photos there is evidence that she was theatrically inclined. There are shots of different plays, judging by the costumes. I can remember her making up songs and singing and dancing around in the kitchen with only me as an audience. She was a crack shot with a .22, and she had a 20-gauge Remington pump shotgun (which I now own) but I do not remember her hunting. I remember my dad throwing cans in the air and my mother shot at them with a .22 rifle. She often hit these cans in the air.

Nannie-Allin Taylor Lilly, 1914

Percy A. Lilly, Sr., 19176

My mother was raised at this point by Marie's sister, Mrs. Etta Allen (Allin). Her son, Dr. Henry Allen, was our doctor except when my mother fell out with him. His bedside manner was not what she liked.

Before her marriage, my mother had been secretary to a lawyer. Whether she had any training, I do not know. I don’t recall that she knew how to type. Her descriptions of her life with her mother sounded like a game of cops and robbers, fleeing the wicked father. Alas, I was only nine when my mother died at the age of thirty-six, so I have an imperfect memory of her and what she told me. She conducted her theatrics and women get-togethers with two small children at home and no help as I remember.

My mother encouraged my father to make home brewed beer in the hope of getting him off the hard stuff. How I know this I do not remember. I do remember saying in front of some adults, “My Dad was kicked downstairs by a white mule last night.” I was quoting him, of course, to his consternation. I didn’t know it meant moonshine. My dad was the kind of alcoholic who kept a gentle buzz on—he was never drunk. He was a gentle man and universally loved by those who knew him.

He had had an adventurous youth. When about twenty-years-old, a group of Morganfield men leased large tracks of land and started a wheat farm near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My Dad borrowed money (on his own recognizance) from the bank and went along to work on the farm. The venture went broke after one year, and my dad had to stay on another year to earn enough to pay off his loan. He lived in a log cabin, and he told me that the ducks and geese were so plentiful that they shot the geese and ducks. He told stories of traveling to Calgary by night in a buggy so cold that snow hitting the steel wheel rims rang out like bells. Tonsillitis was the cause for that 15-mile journey which terminated when his abscessed tonsils burst. His job then was to drive mule teams to plant and harvest wheat. These were not two mule teams but rather multi-mule.

Later, a...