Place and Time

Lillian was born Lillian Virginia Hoppe on December 27, 1926 in Dayton, Ohio—a big city for central Ohio, best known as the home of the Wright brothers and of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. She and John Bentley Hendershot met as teenagers during the Depression, when she worked the switchboard at a local hotel and he worked the night desk. John joined the Army to avoid being drafted, and ended up a finance officer in the Army Air Corps. This photo shows the happy couple on their wedding day in 1940.