BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: Leonza and Harlean Bigelow Hill

We are Black history. My parents, Leonza and Harlean Bigelow Hill, were citizens of Yanceyville, where they worked, built their lives and raised three daughters: Cynthia Hill of Smyrna, GA; Linda Hill of Charlotte, NC; and me (Sharon Hill), who lives in the family home in Yanceyville. 

My father, Leonza Hill, was a mechanic. He also farmed, worked at the tire recapping place, then textile mill, then the town water plant where he was the first Yanceyville operator to pass the water plant operators’ test on his first attempt. He did this while raising gardens, caring for his family, and working in the church as a trustee and cemetery overseer.

He also served in the community as what was considered a “good neighbor”. He often did home repairs, hauled wood for neighbors and relatives, and mentored young men. One Christmas morning he disappeared before we opened presents only to return later having put together a new bicycle for a neighbor’s child.  

He was known by many to be a gifted historian and storyteller.

Leonza Hill was born in Yanceyville in 1930 living here all his life in Yanceyville except for the period of time he served in the US Army as a driver, mechanic and artillery operator in Korea.  Most people in town, Black and white knew him to be a very intelligent, good-humored man with a quick wit who could also be no nonsense.

My mother, Harlean Bigelow Hill, was born in New York and lived in New Jersey as a youth, before moving to Yanceyville at the age of 10, where she attended school and developed friendships that would last a lifetime. She and my dad both graduated from Caswell County training school.

My mother was employed by the Caswell County School system for 34 years.  Prior to her marriage, she worked providing childcare for a local family.  She began working as a cafeteria worker around 1965, becoming a teacher’s assistant, then a library aide before returning to teaching assistant, the position she held until her retirement.  She worked with many newly graduated teachers and mentored them in converting their academic knowledge into classroom performance.  With class sizes usually exceeding 30 students per class at the time, it is estimated that she served over 1000 students. She did this while homemaking, raising three daughters with her husband, gardening, canning, making jellies and preserves, processing pork from pigs her husband raised, serving in the church and community, and occasionally taking college classes.

I invite you to envision the faith, hope and fortitude it must have taken to raise a family in the Jim Crow South. This soft-spoken lady was a phenomenal woman.

Leonza and Harlean Bigelow Hill were married for 64 years. They both died in 2020, within one month of each other.

-Submitted by Sharon Hill