Tilley Pearsall Genealogy Database
Person Page 13
David Brown Tilley
M, #301, b. 30 October 1928, d. 3 April 1989
Parents
| Father | Milton Popple Tilley (b. 13 January 1882, d. 5 May 1981) |
| Mother | Winifred Lulu Holly (b. 16 March 1890, d. 23 June 1980) |
Family: Alice Crane Pearsall (b. 2 November 1924, d. 15 January 2006)
| Daughter | Ferris Pearsall Tilley+ |
| Son | David Brown Tilley, Jr.+ |
Biography
| Research Note | Note of gratitude. By various routes, I, Holly Kilpatrick, have been lucky enough to receive many folders of my Uncle David's genealogy notes. Dave was interested in genealogy all his life, encouraged by his own father who was also a life-long genealogist, of the old school. I knew my uncle well, saw him many many times in my life, but never discussed genealogy with him. By the time genealogy caught my attention, in about 2004, he had been dead for five years. But during so much of my investigation, I have felt he was looking over my shoulder. I have not thrown away a scrap that I have from him. Any half-illegible hasty note on the back of an envelope may be a clue that I am just not ready to understand yet. If I find yet another copy of his father's printed pedigree, I study it carefully because some of them contain additional handwritten finds, added later to whichever copy was handy. I see some half-finished charts, where he is struggling to find connections that are now entered on 20 different Rootsweb World Connect trees, and I have his notes of cemetery visits in New England towns which are now all photographed and annotated on FindAGrave. But I struggle with him over some of the same brick walls, as I come to the same speculations, which I can tell by copies of inquiry letters he wrote. Was Catherine Ann Morgan adopted by VanderHoof's, which Abraham was David Holly's father, which Pratt family did our Benjamin belong to? But I have solved some lovely puzzles which he would appreciate. Y-DNA has proven our descent from John Holly of Stamford, even with some missing links. And the confusing surnames on Margaret McQueen's sampler have been put into their places on the chart, and the mystery of her immigration to the United States has been untangled. So far, no one in the younger generation has shown interest in devoting time to this time-consuming hobby. But I will keep organizing my binders, and scanning photos, and updating my database, and maybe some years after my death, one of the younger family members will develop that obsession to travel back in time to meet our ancestors. | |
| Birth | 30 October 1928 | David Brown Tilley was born on 30 October 1928 in Evanston, Illinois. |
| Newspaper Mention | 16 March 1951 | The 16 March 1951 edition of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, Monroe County, New York, reported their engagement announcement, see attached. |
| Marriage | 31 August 1951 | He and Alice Crane Pearsall were married on 31 August 1951 in New Canaan, Fairfield County, Connecticut, |
| Address | September 1965 | As of September 1965, David lived at 707 Nelson Rd, RD 4, in Ithaca, New York, while going to law school at Cornell. He was in law school there from 1963-1966. I think that is when they had their dog Tawny. |
| Death | 3 April 1989 | He died on 3 April 1989 in Woodstock, VT, |
| Obituary | 6 April 1989 | 6 April 1989, Torrington, Litchfield County, Connecticut, The Register Citizen Obituary:. South Woodstock, VT: David B. Tilley Sr., 60, of South Woodstock, died April 3, 1989, at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Hanover, N.H. He was the husband of Alice Pearsall Tilley. Born Oct 30, 1928, in Evanston, Ill., son of the late Milton and Winifred Holly Tilley, Mr. Tilley was a former Litchfield resident. A graduate of the University of Connecticut, Lafayette University with high honors and Cornell University Law School, Mr. Tilley practiced law with the Litchfield firm of Guion and Stevens for 20 years before moving to South Woodstock. An Air Force veteran of the Korean War, he was a member of the Connecticut and Rhode Island genealogical societies, the Connecticut and American bar associations, the Society of the Cincinnati and Center Congregational Church in Torrington. In addition to his wife, Mr. Tilley is survived by a son, David B. Tilley Jr. of Concord, N.H.; a daughter, Ferris Donoso of Burlington, VT; two sisters, Winifred Pearsall of Easton, Pa., and Linda Winstead of Pleasant Valley; a brother, John M. Tilley of London, England; and four grandchildren. The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church with the Rev. Llewellyn Deane, pastor, officiating. Burial will follow in Riverside Cemetery in Barkhamsted. The Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock, Vt., is in charge of arrangements. Memorial donations may be made to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, Church Hill, Woodstock, Vt. 05091. |
| Last Edited | 2 April 2023 |
Ferris Pearsall Tilley
F, #302
Parents
| Father | David Brown Tilley (b. 30 October 1928, d. 3 April 1989) |
| Mother | Alice Crane Pearsall (b. 2 November 1924, d. 15 January 2006) |
Family: Steven Phillip A. Donoso
| Son | Alec Remigio Donoso |
| Son | Evan Diego Donoso |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Steven Phillip A. Donoso
M, #303
Family: Ferris Pearsall Tilley
| Son | Alec Remigio Donoso |
| Son | Evan Diego Donoso |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
John Bell Clayton, Jr
M, #304
Family: Millicent Pearsall (b. 26 September 1908, d. 1982)
| Son | John Bell Clayton, III+ |
Biography
| Marriage | John Bell Clayton, Jr, and Millicent Pearsall were married, date unknown |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
John Bell Clayton, III
M, #305
Parents
| Father | John Bell Clayton, Jr |
| Mother | Millicent Pearsall (b. 26 September 1908, d. 1982) |
Family: Joan Pletch
| Son | Bruce Clayton |
| Son | John Bell Clayton, IV+ |
| Son | Mark Clayton+ |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Joan Pletch
F, #306
Family: John Bell Clayton, III,
| Son | Bruce Clayton |
| Son | John Bell Clayton, IV+ |
| Son | Mark Clayton+ |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Bruce Clayton
M, #307
Parents
| Father | John Bell Clayton, III |
| Mother | Joan Pletch |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
John Bell Clayton, IV
M, #308
Parents
| Father | John Bell Clayton, III |
| Mother | Joan Pletch |
Family:
| Daughter | Robin Clayton |
| Daughter | Holly Clayton |
| Daughter | Faith Clayton |
| Son | Robert Clayton |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Mark Clayton
M, #309
Parents
| Father | John Bell Clayton, III |
| Mother | Joan Pletch |
Family:
| Daughter | David Clayton |
| Daughter | Katie Clayton |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Daniel Boone Reed
M, #310
Family: Millicent Pearsall (b. 26 September 1908, d. 1982)
Biography
| Marriage | Daniel Boone Reed and Millicent Pearsall were married, date unknown |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Robert Nietzel Buck
M, #311, b. 29 January 1914, d. 14 April 2007
Family: Jean Pearsall (b. 2 December 1912, d. 15 February 2004)
| Son | Robert Orion Buck+ |
| Daughter | Ferris Buck+ (b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019) |
Biography
| Birth | 29 January 1914 | Robert Nietzel Buck was born on 29 January 1914.1 |
| Marriage | 21 February 1938 | He and Jean Pearsall were married on 21 February 1938 |
| Death | 14 April 2007 | He died on 14 April 2007 in Berlin, Vermont, |
| Obituary | 20 May 2007 | 20 May 2007, Obituary:. Robert N. Buck Dies at 93; Was Record-Setting Aviator By MARGALIT FOX Published: May 20, 2007 Robert N. Buck, a distinguished pilot who in the 1930s crossed the continent at record speed, flew a light plane higher than anyone had done before and photographed ancient ruins of the Yucatán from the air for the first time — all by the age of 20 — died on April 14 in Berlin, Vt. He was 93 and had continued to fly gliders into his late 80s. Robert N. Buck in 1930 before the start of a flight to Los Angeles in an attempt to break the junior cross-country record. He was 16. Mr. Buck, a resident of North Fayston, Vt., died of complications of a fall, his son, Robert O. Buck, said last week. News of the death was not made public outside Vermont until this month. A retired chief pilot of T.W.A., Mr. Buck was also a respected aviation writer. He was a particular authority on the weather, and the bumpy place where it meets aviation. During World War II, he performed research on hazardous weather of all kinds by flying gamely into it and recording what he saw, heard and felt. His book “Weather Flying,” published in 1970 and now in its fourth edition, is considered required reading for pilots. Mr. Buck’s other books include a memoir, “North Star Over My Shoulder,” published by Simon & Schuster in 2002. Long before all this, Mr. Buck was nationally known as a flying prodigy, going aloft in one-seaters, dressed in leather helmet and goggles, without even a radio to assist him. He pored over maps, steered by the stars and telephoned his parents after every flight. In April 1930, at 16, Mr. Buck became the youngest licensed pilot in the United States. Later that year, flying from Newark to Los Angeles, he broke the junior transcontinental airspeed record. On the return trip, just for sport, he broke it again. At 17, he wrote a book about it, “Burning Up the Sky,” published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 1931. By the time he was 18, Mr. Buck had set 14 junior aviation records. These included the junior altitude record for light planes, which he broke in July 1930 by ascending to 15,000 feet. (In 1936, Mr. Buck, flying with a cousin, would set a world distance record for light planes, flying nonstop from Burbank, Calif., to Columbus, Ohio — 1,986 miles — in a Lambert Monocoupe.) Red-haired and apple-cheeked, the young Mr. Buck was known in the papers as “the Schoolboy Pilot.” They chronicled his every exploit, including what he carried in his plane (a Bible and a package of sandwiches made by his mother) and his life on the ground (“he likes polo, hunting, riding and milk drinking,” The New York Telegram reported in 1931). Robert Nietzel Buck was born on Jan. 29, 1914, in Elizabethport, N.J., and reared in Westfield, N.J. At 15, fired up by the well-publicized exploits of Charles A. Lindbergh, he and a friend built a glider, which Bob took to the skies before crashing from an altitude of 50 feet. He began lessons in a real plane on his 16th birthday, after his parents made certain that the Westfield airport had no looming telegraph wires nearby. On Sept. 29, 1930, Bob Buck set out to break the junior speed record for a coast-to-coast flight, which stood at 29 hours, 40 minutes. Armed with six chocolate bars and a canteen of water, he pedaled his bicycle to the airport in Newark. He did not have a driver’s license. Climbing into his open biplane, a Pitcairn Mailwing, he took off from Newark’s cinder runway. After half a dozen stops for fuel and repairs, he landed in Los Angeles, in record time, on Oct. 4. (The historical accounts of Mr. Buck’s total time in the air vary, but it was 28 hours, give or take.) On the return trip, aided by tailwinds, he shaved the time down to 23 hours, 47 minutes. Mr. Buck’s other speed records included a round trip to Havana, which he made in 13 hours, 5 minutes, in 1931. On arriving, he was greeted by adoring crowds and presented with a 12-inch cigar, which he later gave, as instructed, to President Herbert Hoover. In late 1933 and early 1934, on assignment for the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Buck and a friend, Robert Nixon, 19, spent three months roaming the Mexican jungle by air, photographing lost Mayan cities of the Yucatán. They were the youngest aerial explorers ever, the newspapers reported. Mr. Buck joined T.W.A. (then Transcontinental and Western Air) in 1937 as a co-pilot. He became a pilot in 1940 and in 1945 was named chief pilot, an administrative job. But he chafed behind a desk and was soon back in the cockpit. During the war, Mr. Buck, working on a joint project of T.W.A. and the Army, went “looking for trouble,” as he often said afterward, piloting a B-17 into snow, hail and thunderstorms all over the globe. “I was able to put my nose in any kind of weather I wanted to fly through,” he told National Public Radio in 2002. “We’d sit around, waiting until the weather was bad and then go fly through it.” The worst weather in the world, Mr. Buck found, was in the largely open stretch between New York and Kansas City, Mo. For his research, Mr. Buck was awarded the Air Medal, one of only a few civilians to receive it, in 1946. Mr. Buck is survived by his son, Robert Orion, of Waterbury Center, Vt. (A retired pilot for Delta Air Lines, the younger Mr. Buck was named, after some marital negotiation, for his father’s love of celestial navigation. His father’s first choice had been Betelgeuse, a star in Orion.) Also surviving are a daughter, Ferris Buck, of North Fayston; eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Mr. Buck’s wife, the former Jean Pearsall, died in 2004. They were married, not without incident, in 1938. On the appointed day, as the bride-to-be and assembled guests waited in New Jersey, Mr. Buck found himself stuck in Kansas City, a passenger on a plane grounded by fog. The wedding took place two days later. The groom took the train. |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Citations
- [S31] Letter from Marilyn Voorhies (email address) to, Feb 24, 2004; (.)
Robert Orion Buck
M, #312
Parents
| Father | Robert Nietzel Buck (b. 29 January 1914, d. 14 April 2007) |
| Mother | Jean Pearsall (b. 2 December 1912, d. 15 February 2004) |
Family: Holly
| Son | Christian Orion Buck |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Ferris Buck
F, #313, b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019
Parents
| Father | Robert Nietzel Buck (b. 29 January 1914, d. 14 April 2007) |
| Mother | Jean Pearsall (b. 2 December 1912, d. 15 February 2004) |
Family 1: Frank Urbanowski
| Daughter | Alexandra Urbanowski |
| Daughter | Tasha Urbanowski |
Family 2: Ned Kelley
Biography
| Birth | 15 November 1940 | Ferris Buck was born on 15 November 1940.1 |
| Death | 29 March 2019 | She died on 29 March 2019 |
| Obituary | 4 April 2019 | 4 April 2019, Waitsfield, Vermont, The Valley Reporter Obituary:. Ferris Buck, North Fayston, died peacefully at her home early Friday, March 29, 2019, shortly after suffering a stroke. Family and friends were by her side, and she was buried at the family home in a simple service, as she had requested. She was 78. Ferris was born to Robert and Jean Pearsall Buck of Westfield, NJ, in 1940. As a young girl, she traveled extensively with her parents as her father was one of the pioneering pilots of TWA and author of the industry standard "Weather Flying." Ferris married her first husband, Frank Urbanowski, in New Jersey in 1960 and blazed an early trail of progressive social norms while living in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Bucks County, PA, before settling in New Hampshire with their daughters, Alexandra and Tasha. She was one of the first women to practice and teach Lamaze in the United States. She and Frank divorced in 1978 and Buck moved to Wildcat Hill, New Ipswich, NH, where she lived off the grid in a house she built while working as a psychotherapist and meditation teacher. Ferris, who used her married name Urbanowski for much of her professional life, was an early practitioner of mindfulness meditation in the U.S. and, with Jon Kabat Zinn, helped develop Mindfulness Based Cognition Therapy at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She was an early student of Thich Nhat Hanh. She taught at many spiritual centers, universities and professional organizations here and abroad, including Tufts, Harvard, Pepperdine, the Omega Center, and in Wales, Canada and Denmark. In 1999, she built a home on Smith Road in Fayston with her second husband, Ned Kelley, near the home her parents built in the 1970s and lived in until their deaths. She continued her national and international teaching and also began working in her local community and in Vermont teaching meditation, leading retreats and continued to write and publish scientific works on mediation. She and Kelley divorced in 2013. Once in Vermont, she embraced her local community, establishing a close circle of friends and spiritual colleagues, meditators and outdoor enthusiasts. Following a series of benign brain tumors and several surgeries her eyesight faltered, and in 2016 she lost her sight completely. She continued to teach mindfulness, meditate with friends and spend much of her time with her daughters and granddaughters in Vermont, New Jersey and California while learning a new way of being without sight. She is survived by her brother, Robert O. Buck of Waterbury and his wife Holly and son Christian and stepson Aaron; by her daughters, Alexandra and Tasha and their spouses John and Steve; and her granddaughters, Béa and Millicent. A celebration of Ferris’ life is planned for this summer in North Fayston. In lieu of gifts, donations may be made to the Mad River Valley Ambulance Service, P.O. Box 305, Waitsfield, VT 05573; 802-496-8888; mrvas@mrvas.org. |
| Last Edited | 6 May 2020 |
Citations
- [S31] Letter from Marilyn Voorhies (email address) to, Feb 24, 2004; (.)
Frank Urbanowski
M, #314
Family: Ferris Buck (b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019)
| Daughter | Alexandra Urbanowski |
| Daughter | Tasha Urbanowski |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Alexandra Urbanowski
F, #315
Parents
| Father | Frank Urbanowski |
| Mother | Ferris Buck (b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019) |
Family: John McCluggage
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Tasha Urbanowski
F, #316
Parents
| Father | Frank Urbanowski |
| Mother | Ferris Buck (b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019) |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Ned Kelley
M, #318
Family: Ferris Buck (b. 15 November 1940, d. 29 March 2019)
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Joan McCarthy
F, #319, d. October 1995
Family: Lindley Hoag Leggett, 3rd, (b. 12 April 1921, d. 12 October 1995)
| Son | Lindley Hoag "Lee" Leggett, 4th+ |
| Son | David Allen Leggett+ |
Biography
| Marriage | 18 March 1944 | Lindley Hoag Leggett, 3rd, and Joan McCarthy were married on 18 March 1944 in Westfield, Union County, New Jersey, |
| Death | October 1995 | She died in October 1995 in Killington, Vermont, |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
John Finney Downham
M, #320
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Lindley Hoag "Lee" Leggett, 4th
M, #321
Parents
| Father | Lindley Hoag Leggett, 3rd (b. 12 April 1921, d. 12 October 1995) |
| Mother | Joan McCarthy (d. October 1995) |
Family: Judy Plessel
| Son | Eric Michael Leggett |
| Last Edited | 18 February 2019 |
David Allen Leggett
M, #322
Parents
| Father | Lindley Hoag Leggett, 3rd (b. 12 April 1921, d. 12 October 1995) |
| Mother | Joan McCarthy (d. October 1995) |
Family: Robin Marie Koechlin
| Daughter | Kristin Marie Leggett |
| Daughter | Jennifer Lynn Leggett |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
Thomas West Downham
M, #324
Parents
| Father | John Finney Downham |
| Mother | Katharine Morgan Leggett |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |
John Finney Downham, Jr
M, #325
Parents
| Father | John Finney Downham |
| Mother | Katharine Morgan Leggett |
Family: Maggi
| Son | Matthew Chase Downham |
| Last Edited | 22 December 2016 |