OHCARROL-L Archives

From:
Subject: Willis School
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 09:44:58 EST

Hi Janice and all.

It was my grandfather, Victor Willis, that donated the land for the Willis
School. And the story is that they only got the land if they named the school
after him. I believe he was on the school board at the time. Victor and his
brother were florists and had a large green house in Salineville where they
raised many of the flowers and plants that they sold.

Victor was the youngest of the 12 children of Isaac Crago Willis and Malissa
Reeder. The 1880 census has Isaac listed as a teacher. Isaac was a not
graduated student, class of 1871 from Mount Union College. He married a young
Malissa, who was one of his students.

Victor was married twice. 1st to my grandmother, Erma Andrews. Their marriage
only lasted long enough for Erma to have my father, Samuel, and get pregnant
with my aunt Sarah (Mrs. Leslie Taylor). Both are deceased. Because of this
divorce, my grandmother's resentment of Victor, and a lot of mixed feelings
that my father had, I never got to know him well. Victor married a second
time to the widowed Anna Dorrance Donaldson and they had one child, a
daughter, Ruth (Mrs. Edward Smith). She is still alive and lives in Amherst,
Ohio.

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