Louella Virginia (Hill) Beardmore

Louella Virginia (Hill) Beardmore was the youngest of the four Hill children — and the younger sister of Bessie Marie (Hill) Davis (1905–1950), Chuck’s great-grandmother. That makes Louella Chuck’s great-grandaunt on the maternal Hill side. Her 2011 obituary is the source for the sketch below.

She was born 1 December 1917 in Lebanon, Monroe County, Ohio, a daughter of Harvey Hendershot Hill (1882–1951) and Clara Victoria (Ullmann) Hill. Her three older siblings were Bessie Marie Hill (b. 1905), Emma Vearl (Hill) Dailey (b. 1907), and Theodore Roosevelt Hill (b. 1912).

She graduated from Somerset High School in 1935, and in 1938 married Charles M. Beardmore — a marriage that lasted 59 years. She worked as head cook for the Fairfield Union Schools for 25 years before retiring, and was a longtime member of Bremen United Methodist Church, where she served on the Altar Guild for many years. She enjoyed reading, cooking, quilting, and her family.

She died 11 December 2011, age 94, at LanFair Center in Lancaster, Ohio, and was buried at Grandview Cemetery. Her obituary names two children — Beth Dennis of Lancaster and Richard (Sandra) Beardmore of Fort Collins, Colorado — along with three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The Davis cross-confirmation

Louella’s obituary is itself a small proof of the Hill–Davis link: among her survivors it names a niece, Betty Wolfe, and a nephew, William Davis — that is, Betty Jean (Davis) Wolfe and William Harvey Davis, two of the children of her sister Bessie and Homer Davis, and the siblings of Chuck’s grandmother Dorothy. The niece-and-nephew naming confirms, from Louella’s own side, that she and Bessie were sisters.

Sources: Louella Virginia Beardmore obituary, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette / Morgan Funeral Home, December 2011 (Chuck’s keeping); Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree, which records the four Hill children of Harvey Hendershot Hill with matching dates.