Hilleary, Julius Lawson 1908-2004

HILLEARY, MARSH, HALE, STRATHMAN, CURTIS, THURMAN, BRYANT, STEPHENSON, NOONAN

Posted By: Debbie Nash (email)
Date: 5/10/2004 at 15:33:43

Julius Lawson Hilleary
May 07, 2004

Julius Lawson Hilleary, 96, of 400 Highland St. died at 4:45 p.m. Thursday, May 6, 2004, at Jefferson County Hospital.

The funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Behner Funeral Home, with the Rev. Dave Peterson officiating. Burial will be in Long Creek Cemetery in Danville.

Visitation will be held from 10a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the funeral home, with family present from 2-3:30 p.m.

Memorials of the donor's choice can be made.

Mr. Hilleary was born April 24, 1908, in Des Moines County, the son of Horace Morris and Marie Ellen Marsh Hilleary. He married Ruth Margarite Hale June 17, 1929, in Keokuk.

He graduated from Burlington High School, and continued his education with a four-year patternmaker apprenticeship in Keokuk.

He lived most of his adult life in Fairfield.

In 1928, he was employed by Louden Machinery Company, first as a patternmaker. He retired from the company in 1973 as manufacturing engineering supervisor.

Hilleary was an inventor who found solutions to many problems. As a retiree, he continued his lifelong interest in technology, spending many hours at his computer and reading e-mail.

In 1987, he wrote his autobiography, "The Twentieth Century and Me."

Survivors include his wife; five children, Shirley Dee Strathman and husband Paul of Mason City, James Hilleary and wife Jackie of Placentia, Calif., Joy Curtis and husband Bruce of East Lansing, Mich., Jack Hilleary and wife Paula of La Selva Beach, Calif., and Morris Hilleary of Blue Jay, Calif.; 13 grandchildren; and 25 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents; one brother, Oran Hilleary; one sister, Nyra Thurman; four stepbrothers, Floyd, Chet, Dick and Harry Bryant; one stepsister, Emily Stephenson; and one daughter-in-law, Shelia Noonan Hilleary.

Courtesy of the Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc. 2004