Annis Avery Hill

On December 25, 1815, she married Caleb Hill of Gardner, Mass.  She was 18, and he was 29.  They had 8 children.  When Caleb died in 1842, she was 44 years old, with the youngest of their children being 5 years old.

The eldest daughter, Adaline, was 24.  At age 15, she had married Thomas M. Riddle, who had settled in Wauwatosa in November 1835, which was the first year that settlers came to Wauwatosa.  Riddle was a longtime owner of the Little Red Store.  

Two years later, Annis Avery Hill decided to move with her remaining 6 sons and left for Wauwatosa to join Adaline. With all her worldly possessions tightly packed into a covered wagon, Annis moved from Massachusetts to Wisconsin to live near her daughter. On the Fourth of July 1844, she arrived at what would be her home for the remaining 43 years of her life, Wauwatosa. 

Through the next four decades of her life, she taught Sunday School at the Congregational Church, cooked, made quilts and rugs, and established many friendships. She did sewing for many other families.  To her friends and family, the woman who always wore a white lace cap was known as Grandmother Hill.  When she died, the local newspaper claimed that “Wauwatosa Hasn’t a Grandma Anymore”. 

She is the namesake of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).  Her father fought in the American Revolution, and she was born in the last year of George Washington’s presidency, so it is understandable why she was chosen as the namesake of the DAR chapter.  You will find a historical marker in the Wauwatosa Cemetery for her along with a bench in her name to rest on.