Flora Gill
(1848-1934)
Flor Gill's father was a Maine sea captain who met and married a Southern women while in New Orleans. They settled in Augusta, Maine, where Flora was born. After losing his ship, her father took a job as a lighthouse keeper. Gill and her four sisters grew up on an island and loved the sea. When her father died, she became the family bread-winner and learned the millinery trade.
A cousin suggested she try her luck our west, and she traveled to Chicago.She opened her own business on the southwest corner of Lake and Marion Streets in Oak Park in 1876. As one of the first women in business locally, she served the female population of the town for the next thirty years. In those days, a millinery store was an important one; women always wore hats in public. It could take several days to "make over" and old hat, or a half-day to select a new hat.
In later life, Gill who had never married, adopted a child Janet Coutts, who is buried beside her.
Information from Nature's Choicest Spot
A cousin suggested she try her luck our west, and she traveled to Chicago.She opened her own business on the southwest corner of Lake and Marion Streets in Oak Park in 1876. As one of the first women in business locally, she served the female population of the town for the next thirty years. In those days, a millinery store was an important one; women always wore hats in public. It could take several days to "make over" and old hat, or a half-day to select a new hat.
In later life, Gill who had never married, adopted a child Janet Coutts, who is buried beside her.
Information from Nature's Choicest Spot
