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Douglas County, Illinois Biographies

WILLIAM H. BECKMAN is a member of a Chicago law firm whose name commands instant respect in the profession of the state, Beckman, Todd, Hough & Woods, at 134 North LaSalle Street. His law practice has been only one of many activities which have taken up Mr. Beckman's busy years.
He is a native of Illinois, born on a farm in Douglas County, May 15, 1872, son of William and Rebecca Elizabeth (Stoughton) Beckman. His mother was a native of Pennsylvania, while his father, born in Germany, was brought to America when a boy. William Beckman was a Union soldier in the Civil war, a member of Company K of the One Hundred and Ninety-first Pennsylvania Regiment. His discharge papers have been carefully preserved by his son, who has them framed and hanging in his office. William Beckman moved to Illinois in 1867 and spent the rest of his active life as a farmer.
William H. Beckman made good use of the opportunities of a liberal education. He attended the University of Illinois, was graduated from the Kent College of Law at Chicago in 1897, and for the past thirty-four years has been enrolled in the Chicago bar, and since 1916 has been senior member of his present firm.
Mr. Beckman has an interesting record of military experience. During the Spanish-American war he went to Cuba as a private in the First Infantry, Illinois National Guard. Twenty years later, when America entered the World war, he organized the Fourth Regiment of the Illinois Reserve Militia and was its colonel four years. It was at the suggestion of Governor Lowden that he undertook the formation of this auxiliary organization in addition to the requirements made by the National Government at that time. During the war he was also chairman of the draft board of the Fifty-first District, and in this position he put in some of the most exacting work of all his military experience.
Mr. Beckman served as a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1920. For several years he was attorney for the Lincoln Park Board. He is a member of the Chicago and Illinois State Bar Associations, is president of the Illinois golf Club, a former president of the Illinois Athletic Club, member of the Westmoreland golf Club, Illinois Athletic Club, Medinah Athletic Club. in masonry he has attained the 33rd supreme honorary degree in the Scottish Rite. He is a past master of Blaney Lodge No. 271, A.F. and A.M., and a member of all the other bodies of the York and Scottish Rite, including the Shrine. Mr. Beckman is a director of the Citizens State Bank of Chicago and the Commercial State Bank.
He married Miss Adeline M. LeRoy , of Syracuse, New York. ("ILLINOIS, The Heart of the Nation" by Hon. Edward F. Dunne, Volume IV, 1933, Transcribed by Kim Torp)

MRS. LILLA M. LEE - "Mrs. Lilla M. Lee, a life-long teacher of Oklahoma children, left Texas in February 1904 with her family of five children to settle on a homestead of 160 acres about three miles east of Gage. (Oklahoma) Mrs. Lee was the widow of Wm. Thomas Lee, a southern educator. Following his death she had been persuaded to come to Oklahoma by two of her brothers who had preceded her to Ellis County; Leonard Gibbs, then manager of the local lumber yard, and Oliver L. Gibbs. She had arranged for a house to be built on the land and went directly there with her family her family when she arrived by train one cold February morning. Unfamiliar with Oklahoma winds, she later regretted that the site chosen for the house had been built atop a hill! Her children, ranging in age from fourteen years to an infant of six months, were Mamie, Daisy, Will, Aubrey and Maybelle.

The house, painted white with a green roof, had several rooms downstairs and a large, unfinished attic. A well had been dug and a pump installed. Mrs. Lee supervised the planting of garden and crops on such land as had been "broken" for cultivation. Much of the land was virgin soil untouched by plow and the smaller children remembered playing in grassy depressions known as "buffalo wallows."

In September 1904 Mrs. Lee began a teaching career in the elementary schools of Ellis County which was to continue uninterruptedly until 1914 when she was elected County Superintendent of Schools. As customary, she conducted a "Teachers' Institute" in Arnett that summer. Her two oldest daughters, Mamie and Daisy Lee, who had been sent back to Mississippi State College, at Columbus, returned to Oklahoma and attended this "Institute". Daisy Lee remained in Oklahoma to teach a school near Grand and the following summer married William A. Snowden, a pioneer settler who spent his entire life in Ellis County. She died at an early age and is buried with her husband in a cemetery near Shattuck. William Snowden had antecedents in Maryland.

Mrs. Lee moved to Arnett to serve as County Superintendent of Schools. She had fulfilled the homestead requirements in 1910 and held title to the land which was planted on shares, chiefly in wheat. Her son, Will had been the first graduate of Gage High School, the only one in the class. Aubrey Lee had been sent to stay with an aunt and attend Kansas State Agricultural College. Mamie Lee taught for one year in the Arnett School, then married Frank E. Ransdell, an early settler, who had served two terms as County Attorney of Ellis County. In 1918 he was appointed to the U. S. Attorney's office in Oklahoma City where they lived until her death in 1921. Frank E. Ransdell, a native Missiourian, had studied law at the University of Missouri and practiced law at Independence, Missouri before going to Oklahoma. Following his wife's death he practiced law in the Osage Nation until his retirement. He is buried beside his wife in Oklahoma City.

Mrs. Lee was reelected in 1916 and continued to live in Arnett until the expiration of her term. She visited rural schools many miles apart, over country roads, to encourage teachers and pupils. At the outbreak of World War I in 1917 she was appointed Women's County Chairman and member of Ellis County Council of Defense by Governor Robert L. Williams. Both sons had enlisted and were serving overseas. Will H. Lee served with the famed Second Regiment, U.S. Marines; was awarded the Navy Cross and French Croix de Guerre for valor at Belleau Woods. He had attended the University of Oklahoma, later received a L1.B. from National Law School. A career officer in USMC, he retired with rank of Colonel following World War II, where he served in the South Pacific. He resided in Washington, D.C. until his death in 1956 when he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. He is survived by one daughter, Jean Lee Keating, wife of Major James J. Keating, USAF, and two grandchildren.

Aubrey M. Lee, in Army Medical Corps, was wounded in France. Returning to college he was graduated from Kansas State Agricultural College, degree of D.V.M.; later received an M.S. from Ohio State University. From college he went to the faculty of University of Wyoming where he later became Professor of Veterinary Medicine and Director of University Experiment Station. In 1954, serving as specialist in United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, he was presented the Department's "Superior Service Award" by Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, at an outdoor ceremony at Washington Monument. The citation was given for his work "For coordinating an important, difficult research project, resulting in solving the problem of X-disease, or hyperkeratosis of cattle, a disease of great economic importance, thereby saving millions of dollars annually". In 1960 he was named "Man of the Year" by KSAC for distinguished service in the field of Veterinary Medicine and returned there to be honored at special services. He is the author of many scientific publications, a 32nd Degree Mason. He retired in 1965 and resides with his wife in Bowie, Maryland. He has one daughter, Dorothy Lee Sawyer, wife of Dr. Thomas K. Sawyer of Easton, Maryland, and three grandchildren.

Both of Mrs. Lee's sons received grade school and high school education in the Gage public school. Maybelle Lee, youngest child, attended Arnett High School, was graduated from the University of Wyoming, and is the wife of Winfield F. Wagner, and Attorney, in Washington, D.C. One daughter, Janet Lee Wagner, resides in Washington, D.C. At the expiration of her term as County Superintendent of Schools, with her family reared, Mrs. Lee left Ellis County and went to teach in the Osage Nation. Here she continued her patient, unswerving dedication to the teaching of Oklahoma children until 1931 when she retired. She spent the last two years of her life in Washington, D.C. near her children. Returning to Oklahoma City in 1933, she remained there until her death in 1934. She is buried there in the State she loved. Mrs. Lee was born in 1866. She came from a family that had played its part in the settlement of the country; granddaughter of a pioneer Tennessee Judge, and direct descendent of a revolutionary patriot." By Maybelle Lee Wagner 1974, Ellis County, Oklahoma

"This is an article written about my great grandmother, Lilla (Lilly) Gibbs Lee. She married William Thomas Lee in Montgomery County, Texas." (Source #10)