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Date of birth : Feburary 24, 1851, Adams County, Illinois.

Date of death : May 29, 1933, Laclede, Linn County, Missouri.

 

Marilyn's maternal great grandfather.

Father of Della Monroe and grand-father of Gladys Baker.

 

Son of farmers George Willis Hogan (1816, Garrad County, Kentucky- February 15, 1887, Jackson County, Missouri) and Sarah Ann Owen (April 10, 1822, Kentucky-February 15, 1900, Linn County, Missouri)

(). 

Census 1930 .

They married on March 8, 1843, Grant County, Kentucky ().

 

In 1870, aged 18, he married Charlotte Virginia "Jenny" Nance (April 10, 1857, Missouri-1935, Kansas

City).

They had 4 children : 

- Dora Olivia (future Dora Graham)(November 1875, Missouri-8 septembre 1949, Oregon)(;

)

- Della Mae (or May)(July 1st, 1876, Missouri-August 23, 1927, Los Angeles, California)

- William Marion (April 4, 1878, Missouri-May 4, 1947, San Bernardino, California)(

-)

- Myrtle Belle (October 30, 1880, Missouri-September 7, 1949, Missouri)().

In 1878, to provide for his family's needs, he rented himself, per day, as a workman.

He worked long hours for a poor salary, and despite his efforts, the family lifestyle was very hardscrabble.

It seems than in 10 years, they didn't end to travel all over the state of Missouri, going from farm to farm, living in sheds, with the employees and sometimes with horses.

Despite his poverty and a more than basic education, Tilford must had the mind naturally curious and much sensitive because he learned how to read on his own. He found he had a true passion for poetry and classic literature, to which he devoted all his free time.
 

Jennie and Tilford divorced in 1889 (unknown reasons).

At that time, the divorce wasn't a usual thing to the zealous Christians of Missouri, and this brought him a real quarantine.

Jennie took her children and went to live at her mothers, in the county of Chariton, Missouri.

Tilford went to live with his sister, in the county of Linn, Missouri.

His friends and neighbors liked him and much respected him; he was a generous man who didn't hesitate to share his gasoline and his meagre supplies.

Throughout his adult life, he suffered from a severe chronic polyarthritis and respiratory infections, which didn't improve with hard work conditions, and insufficient feeding and a permanent poverty.

In 1891, aged 40, he worked more than ever; frail and delicate, he lived in a terrible loneliness, neglected by his children whose visits were rare.

He had faced, full shot, the death of his daughter, Della, in August 1927.

On September 17, 1928 he married Emma Dora Levell (December 3, 1861, Missouri-May 31, 1934, Laclede County, Missouri).

His health began to decline. His wife, Emma, also suffered form cardiac problems.

1933 : with the stock exchange slump in 1929, hardship had become the common portion of the whole USA and Tilford hadn't been saved. There were about 200 cases of suicide a day, at the rate of families flip side of fortune.

At that time, there were more than 50 millions of jobless men, an adult per a 4 people family. Many banks closed, every week factories became bankrupt, many peasants became wandering workmen and many middle-class families or more rich, ended in tarred cardboard sheds, living with garbage and rubbish. 

In February, the nation came close to a collective nervous breakdown. President Franklin D.Roosevelt, who was on a state visit in Miami, escaped from a firearm attack.

Invested in his functions on March, he promised, with the help of his government, to help the country getting out of sinking. But everybody knew that the exploit wouldn't be achieve in a week.

At that time of economical panic and pain, Tilford get lost.

In May 1933, his lungs and kidneys condition deteriorated as fast as the farm he was in charge of. He was quickly unable to provide for his needs and Emma's one. During this month of May, he was banished from the farm.

On May 29, 1933, at the end of the afternoon, he said goodbye to Emma from the window of their small house in Laclede. Driving their bone shaker, she went to the village nearby, to do an hypothetical shopping at the market. Two hours later, back, she called her husband, whitout success. He wasn't in the house, and not around.

She headed toward the barn and, entering in the ruined building, she saw him.

Hanged to a rope placed to the main beam, he was swaying on the darkness.

The investigation initiated by the Missouri State Board of Health led to the same conclusions than the one of the doctor called on emergency : Tilford, out of pride and hope, had committed suicide, increasing the desperate statistics of the county of Linn, of the darkest year of the Great Depression.

 

Death certificate 

Death notice 

He was burried on May 31, 1933 at the Laclede Cemetery (). 

 

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