Mitchell, William Alexander Lambie

Other Events:

• 1860 Census: 1860, Kaukauna, Outagamie, Wisconsin, USA
• 1870 Census: 1870, Kaukauna, Outagamie, Wisconsin, USA; Page 11 Line 28

Notes:

Biography:
From Ancestry Trees
http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/45830343/person/6434610823/media/5?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid%7cpgNum
I never knew Uncle Billy Mitchell. He passed away in 1943 at the age of 90, the year before I was born. However, I have heard my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, my maternal grandmother, Mildred (McCauley) Corbin and his son and daughter-in-law, Charles M. and Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell speak of him often. Uncle Billy lived the last several years of his life with Charles and Bonnie.
When Mary Jane "Jane" (Lemon) Mitchell passed away in 1914, the family lived in a rented four-room stone house one-half mile west of the Old Stone Church. Uncle Billy worked very hard all of his life, first for the railroad in Concordia, Kansas and later at Maple Hill, Kansas. He then became a tenant farmer for several families in the Maple Hill area. He spent his last working years as the care taker for the Old Stone Church and Cemetery, Maple Hill, Kansas.
The family lived in the Old Stone Church parsonage, directly across the road north from the Dura and Meletiah Warren home. The house burned in 1913. Margaret (Mitchell) Vilander was a young girl at the time and worked for both the Dura and William H. Warren families cooking and cleaning house. Charles Mitchell also worked for the Warren families on their farms. Margaret Lemon gave me a tintype photograph of her grandparents, Stewart and Luroncy (Grandy) Lemon, which she said was the only thing the family saved when they ran from the burning parsonage in 1913.
Uncle Billy Mitchell suffered from what Charles and Bonnie Mitchell called "harding of the arteries" in his final years. They said that he was even unable to remember who they were at the last. Aunt Bonnie always spoke very lovingly of him.
I have spoken to many people who thought very highly of Uncle Billy's work at the cemetery. He dug the graves by hand and always made sure that they were exactly 6' deep. He also took a great deal of pride in making sure that all of the spirea bushes on the graves were neatly trimmed, that the iris were weeded and that the peonies were treated for ants that ate the plant's bulbs. The grass was cut with a team and riding mower.
Perhaps the fact that the Mitchell's children were raised in a working class environment under often difficult circumstances, caused all of the children to work very hard and accomplish a great deal during their lifetimes. I knew them all to be very industrious, kind and warm.

1860 Census:
Robt Mitchell30
Janet Mitchell20
Michaelmas Mitchell12
Robt Mitchell10
Elizabeth Mitchell8
William Mitchell5