Tuesday, July 15, 2025
For those who have driven by the complex lately, I am sure you’ve noticed the beautiful photos that cover two of the windows of the Jones Education Station. Last year we dedicated the one on the East, which is a photo of the Schmidt children before they left on Orphan Trains. This year we have a new one on the West side that was dedicated at Celebration. This window honors the Hill siblings, Ruben, Elsie, and Albert. Here is their story:
On the 13th of June 1895, Finnish immigrants Karl Henry Hill and Sofia Ulrika Savela were married in the borough of Manhattan, New York. It was Karl’s second marriage. His first wife had passed away after giving birth to two sons, Charles (born in 1888) and Henry (born in 1891). Karl was 32 and Sofia was 33 years old when they married. They quickly started their family. Son Walter was born in September of 1895, followed by Einer in January of 1897. Ruben Waldemar Hill was born on June 27, 1898. Elsie Karoline Hill, their only daughter, was born on June 14, 1900, and finally came little Albert Mikel Hill on the seventh of February, 1902.
On the 18th of March in 1908, Sofia (Savela) Hill passed away at the age of 44. The family was living at 177 Eagle Avenue in Brooklyn at the time. Karl was a carpenter and he passed away just weeks later on the fifth of May, 1908, of “Phithisis Pulmonalis.” This was also known as pulmonary consumption and later would be known as Tuberculosis. The two older half brothers took off. Walter found work. Einer, Ruben, Elsie, and Albert were taken to the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum. Einer stayed there for a time before going to live with a farmer in Ferndale, New York.
On March 4, 1911, the three youngest Hill children were turned over to the Children’s Aid Society. Ten days later, they were in Marion, Kansas, after a three-day train journey aboard an Orphan Train. The agents overseeing this placement were Rev. J.W. Swan, Miss Anna Laura Hill, and W.W. Bugbee of El Dorado, Kansas. During the placement, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Frobenius decided to take 12-year-old Ruben and 11-year-old Elsie. Eight-year-old Albert cried so hard when the decision was made that the Frobeniuses changed their minds and decided to take Elsie and Albert. They took the children home. Edmund and Minnie thought about it that evening and they could not stand the idea of separating the siblings. They phoned to see if it would be agreeable for them to take all three. Of course, Mr. Swan, Anna, and Mr. Bugbee were delighted. They loved keeping siblings together if at all possible.
Just one year after the Hill children went to Marion, the two half brothers, Charles and Henry, called at the Children’s Aid Society office to inquire about them. Then in July of 1912, Walter called to inquire about them. In December of 1912, Henry again inquired.
Ruben, Elsie, and Albert were all raised by the Frobeniuses and used that for their last name. When the siblings were on their own, Elsie went back to using the name Hill. Ruben and Albert went by Hills. In 1917, Robert L. Brace (Charles Loring Brace’s son and the man in charge of the Children’s Aid Society at the time) sent a letter to Mr. Frobenius with Walter’s address. Ruben, Elsie, and Albert all wrote to Walter.
Ruben Hills married Laura Geneva McDougan in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 11, 1931. They became the parents of one child, a daughter Christie. Ruben was a warehouseman and later a merchant. His family moved to California in 1944.
Elsie married Adam Isaac Strawder. They became the parents of three children, William, Edward, and Charlene. Adam had a farm near Leroy, Kansas, and Elsie was a farm wife. After Adam’s death in 1967, Elsie left the farm and moved in with her daughter Charlene at Bald Knob, Arkansas, where she spent the rest of her life.
Albert married Frances E. Briles on the 20th of January in 1926. They became the parents of one daughter, Dorothy. Albert went by Mike Hills as an adult. He owned a filling station and also served as the superintendent of the water department for the City of Leroy, Kansas.
In 1962, after years of searching for his younger siblings, Walter found Ruben in Turlock, California. He had found Einer in about 1942 in New York and remained in contact with him. Now, connected with Ruben, he had made the important step he needed to be in contact with all of his missing siblings, for Ruben was still in contact with his little sister and brother. All of the children of Karl Henry and Sofia (Savela) Hill were once again able to communicate and catch up on the fifty years that had passed since they were separated.
The window covering was sponsored by descendants of Elsie (Hill) Strawder. Those descendants gathered at the National Orphan Train Complex on Thursday, June 12, to dedicate the plaque and window in honor of the Hill siblings.
