Earlier this month, I attended the annual Wills Reunion at Silver Lake, Washington. Sam Wills does a great job organizing this yearly event with the help of some of his family. I'm sure it helps to have the reunion at the same place or in the same vicinity each year when people are coming from all over, not to mention sticking with the same month. So, this year I went to the Wills Reunion and I brought my dad along with me.
It was a really memorable experience! Dad and I got to meet our cousins who live in Washington and Oregon for the first time and share a lot of information - some of which was completely new information shared within the family.
Our Pacific Northwest cousins all descend from George Travis Wills and Evelyn Marie LeBlanc Wills who moved their entire family (eight children in all) from Louisiana to Washington State in 1927. Their youngest (and ninth) child, Evelyn, was born in Washington.
Uncle George was the youngest of James Drayton and Lizzie Belle Attaway Wills' five children. He moved to Louisiana, married Evelyn in 1909 and started a family. He worked for the Long Bell Lumber Company in Longville, Louisiana. In March, 1926, Uncle George left for Washington to join his fellow skilled workers at a huge lumber mill that was built in Longview, Washington. Longview was a planned township on the banks of the Columbia River. It was founded by R. A. Long of the Long Bell Lumber Company.
Aunt Evelyn stayed in charge on their 75 acre farm in Louisiana and took care of everything - the kids, the livestock, the running of the household - while Uncle George was away. Uncle George loved Washington and wrote glowingly of the beautiful weather, lovely mountains and picnics with friends; and sent snapshots with his letters back home. Anyone who's been to Washington or Oregon will know why he fell in love with the complete change of scenery.
When Uncle George returned home to Louisiana in December, 1926, he had a surprise in store for his family. They were all going to move to Longview, Washington. As hard as it is to imagine moving everyone and everything to the uppermost reaches of the continental United States, that's exactly what Uncle George and Aunt Evelyn (and their eight children) did when they began their journey on December 31, 1926.
I was eleven years old in 1972 when I met Granddaddy Wills' (Joe Summers Wills) first cousin, Helen. Helen was Uncle George and Aunt Evelyn's fourth child and first daughter. I was living in Laguna Hills, California and Helen paid a visit while my grandparents were out visiting us and that's when I first learned of the Wills who lived in Washington. It wasn't until I moved to Houston, Texas over 30 years later that I met Helen's daughter, Lee, and her family who live here, too. I learned that Sam Wills (Howard Benton Wills' grandson) was as interested in the Wills family as I was and he organized a reunion for his family every August. So, the trip dad and I made out to Washington and Oregon was to attend their reunion and meet some of our cousins on the other side of the country. Thanks to all who made dad and I feel at home - we both had a wonderful time! A special thanks to Sam who shared his time and his family with us on Friday when we drove to Mount St. Helens. It was a great and memorable day - the first of many!
I took excerpts from Helen E. Wills Bachich's first hand account of the trip and move to Washington she made with her dad, mom and siblings, a story called "The Trip", written in July, 1996.
