pete hill’s possible family

Here is the 1900 census entry that Brian McKenna mentioned in the comments to the post on Pete Hill’s death certificate, showing a John P. Hill, born October 1882 in Virginia, living in Pittsburgh with his mother, two brothers, and stepfather:

The information for Hill matches Pete Hill’s WW1 draft card (birthdate October 12, 1882), the passenger list entry in 1916 also mentioned by Brian, his 1920 census entry (listing Hill as born in Virginia, though the age is off), and his death certificate (the first three of these were shown to me by Patrick Rock, the last by Fred Worth).

The Hill/Reynolds family here was well-known and easily traceable, largely because Jerome Bryant Hill, the oldest son, became a prominent pillar of the community, a postal worker who was involved in the YMCA.  His wife Bessie Hill, a well-known socialite, herself rated many mentions in the Courier over the years. 

Here is a brief item from the Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1912, giving us information about Elizabeth Reynolds’s mother:

The second son, Walter Vaughan Hill, was born in Rapidan, a small community in Culpeper County, Virginia, according to his World War II draft card.  So the family from the 1900 census is strongly tied to that county.  Pete Hill, according to the passenger list mentioned by Brian (and posted here) was born in Buena Vista, Virginia, which could refer to a town in Rockbridge County or a township in King and Queen County.

In February, 1927, Pete Hill visited Pittsburgh, as noted in the Courier (February 19).

This is a small item in Cumberland Posey’s column in the same issue, confirming that Hill was in town to see family (though they are not named):

Elizabeth Reynolds, perhaps after the death of John Reynolds, later married a John Kelly.  Her passing in 1931 rated a front page article in the Courier (September 26, 1931):

Here the third son is mentioned only as “Johnnie,” with no indication that he is the famous ballplayer Pete Hill.

Jerome Hill died on August 17, 1940.  I haven’t found an obituary for him, though his death was mentioned in the Courier that week.  A year later, a brief memorial was published in the classified section for the anniversary of his death (Pittsburgh Courier, August 16, 1941):

Again, the third son is only “John” and is not identified as the famous ballplayer.

It seems slightly odd to me that two relatively well-known people, Jerome Hill and Pete Hill, could haunt the pages of the Pittsburgh Courier for many years without anyone ever once noting that they were brothers.  So after working at this for more than a year, I’m remaining agnostic on this connection, though intuitively it makes a great deal of sense.

UPDATE 5:36 p.m.  I should acknowledge that it would be unlikely for Pete Hill to have identified himself as a famous ballplayer in the little memorial piece on Jerome Hill published in 1941.  But the front page obituary for Elizabeth Kelly published in 1931 is a different matter--that would be precisely the sort of article that would point out such a fact.

UPDATE 5:40 p.m.  Sorry, one more: I should also clarify that I am not definitively saying there aren’t any items in the Courier that would establish Pete Hill as this family’s youngest brother--just that I haven’t found any yet.

Comments

[Gary Ashwill]

Patrick, that sounds about right to me.

[Patrick Rock]

Gary,

The first thought I had while reading the 1931 and 1940 stories is that "Pete" is the name that baseball fans knew John Preston Hill by (remember, it's only been within the last year that we confirmed that John was actually his first name) and that "Johnnie" might be what his close family knew him by. It is also possible that the newspaper never knew the familial connection, and that the family might not have been particularly interested in drawing such attention, and was the sole source of the information reported in the paper.

I'm not saying this is the *likely* scenario, but I think more investigation might be called for, and that the evidence in favor of this being Pete Hill's family is currently stronger than the evidence against.