Who am I and what am I doing here

Anne Kilmer Hillis

Married to John Hillis; three children. John is an archivist and antiquarian, retired. I am a jack of all trades and a journeyman in the newspaper production business, which would have pleased my grandfather, Joyce Kilmer. Retired, thank God.

I have, in my time, reared three dyslexic children, though myself dyslexic; taught Special Education classes at a private school, (my special interest is gifted learning-disabled, whatever the current euphemism is), taught music, photography, poetry, and – reluctantly -- mathematics. I have never mastered the sevens table.

I am a proof reader and copy editor, wrote editorials for the Evening Times in West Palm Beach during its last year (that was a heady experience) and wrote a garden column for years for the Palm Beach Post. In it, I encouraged readers to grow weeds and be kind to bugs, with the happy result that butterfly gardens bloomed throughout Florida, especially in schoolyards.

Now I am looking at stacks of document boxes containing letters and papers of a genealogical nature from my family, and John’s. They will, thank God, go to my daughter when I have finished with them, and meantime, I am attempting to glean from them the information about my forebears that will interest the reader without bringing a blush to the cheek of the innocent.

Apres moi, le deluge.

Aside from depression, a penchant for suicide, and an irregular relationship or two, there is nothing very scandalous in there, I’m sorry to say.

My ancestry includes Joyce Kilmer, Aline Kilmer, Frederick Frieseke, and John boasts Cyrus Bussey, a Civil War general. Both of us had many ancestors and collaterals interested in genealogy who indulged in much correspondence with like-minded individuals.

My temptation is to dump all the scanned documents I have into a DVD, scandals and all, ignoring all copyrights etc., and let someone else do the organizing, this not being my métier. Far, far otherwise, in fact. Meanwhile, I’m happy to count myself as one of the Wikipedia Talking Heads.

Akilmer 15:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)