Individual Details
Lillian Beverly Chew
(19 Feb 1866 - )
Lillian's son Alec Wilder said of his mother:
In pictures as a young woman, she was very beautiful. She lived in Geneva in a beautiful old colonial house with her very formal father (I was told he was never known to kiss, only shake hands) and mother. Her mother was very mild and gentle and had had a very proper upbringing ... My mother was apparently invited everywhere, and all kinds of gentlemen were after her and she waited quite a while before she got married and had absolutely no background for marriage. Nobody had told her about it, and to suddenly find herself living, not only with as rambunctious a man as my father, but with a surrounding family of unpredictable people, couldn't have been very easy for a woman who had been brought up in a very southern atmosphere.
Alec said further:
His mother didn't marry until she was thirty and knew nothing about household matters such as meat bills and coal bills. She had been a belle who had been spoiled by her family and by men. She was a Chew, and she had grown up in a colonial house surrounded by English boxwood in the beautiful upstate town of Geneva. It was a conventional, proper, Henry James life - a safe life, where there was safe talk and cheerful people and no arguments (Stone 8-9).
In pictures as a young woman, she was very beautiful. She lived in Geneva in a beautiful old colonial house with her very formal father (I was told he was never known to kiss, only shake hands) and mother. Her mother was very mild and gentle and had had a very proper upbringing ... My mother was apparently invited everywhere, and all kinds of gentlemen were after her and she waited quite a while before she got married and had absolutely no background for marriage. Nobody had told her about it, and to suddenly find herself living, not only with as rambunctious a man as my father, but with a surrounding family of unpredictable people, couldn't have been very easy for a woman who had been brought up in a very southern atmosphere.
Alec said further:
His mother didn't marry until she was thirty and knew nothing about household matters such as meat bills and coal bills. She had been a belle who had been spoiled by her family and by men. She was a Chew, and she had grown up in a colonial house surrounded by English boxwood in the beautiful upstate town of Geneva. It was a conventional, proper, Henry James life - a safe life, where there was safe talk and cheerful people and no arguments (Stone 8-9).
Events
| Birth | 19 Feb 1866 | ||||
| Marriage | 14 Feb 1900 | George Wilder |
Families
| Spouse | George Wilder ( - ) |
| Child | Helen Wilder (1903 - ) |
| Child | Alec Wilder (1907 - 1980) |
| Father | Alexander Lafayette Chew (1824 - ) |
| Mother | Sarah Augusta Prouty (1826 - ) |
| Sibling | Beverly Chew (1850 - ) |