The Wilber Family

Robert Sloan Wilber and his wife Elizabeth Wilber moved to Champaign County in 1860 from New York. By 1900, the family was living at a home on West Church Street, in the location that is now the Springer Cultural Center. They bought the land on which the Wilber Mansion would be constructed in 1903, but the mansion was not completed until 1907. The mansion is located in the historically significant neighborhood on Piety Hill, which used to house many clergymen and locally important families.

Initially a farmer, Robert soon started a storage and transfer business to haul students’ trunks to and from the University of Illinois with a storefront on North Market Street. Eventually, the business expanded to deal in coal, seeds, and farm machinery.

Robert and Elizabeth had two children: Frank and Ella. Frank was two years younger than Ella and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1890. By 1900, he was working as a clerk at Wilber Implement House. By 1904, his job title had changed to bookkeeper, and by 1906 he was a manager. It is unclear if he held these titles at Wilber Implement House. In 1908, He married Katherine McGraw, daughter of the operator of McGraw Grocery, a wholesale distributor of fruits and produce. The building containing McGraw Grocery later became Cattle Bank and now serves as the Champaign County History Museum. Frank passed away by 1923.

Ella was born in Champaign County in 1868 and graduated from Westside Champaign High School in 1885 before attending the University of Illinois, from which she never graduated. She was known for wearing pince-nez with a chain attached either to her hairpin or a sprig on her top. In 1913, she married William Wallace Paul, who had moved to Champaign from Chicago and was an owner of the Paul and Lambert Shoe Store at 27 Main Street. Their wedding was held at Champaign’s First Presbyterian Church. 

Ella was a talented artist—she began learning the arts as a hobby in 1881 while studying under the Dominican Sisters at St. Mary’s Convent located at Church and Park Streets. Ella painted oils, watercolors, and china. Eventually, she sold much of her work; however, some was also used to decorate the mansion her parents constructed in the first decade of the 20th century. Two of the mansion’s fireplaces were decorated with her painted tiles, and the dining room curtain tie-backs were decorated with china medallions she painted. She painted other various decor pieces, as well, including dining sets and a china clock. Ella also contributed to many other design decisions, and the mansion’s unusual combination of Victorian and Arts and Crafts aesthetics are the result of Ella’s interpretation of popular styles of the day.

The family’s mansion was built with the intention of it eventually being given to Ella; Ella and her husband William moved into the mansion in 1919. That same year, the couple purchased Paul’s Plainview Dairy at 1600 North Market Street. Financial troubles soon followed, though, and they were required to mortgage the mansion in the late 1920s to support their business. They also subdivided a parcel on North Market Street that had been left to Ella by Robert. Today, this area is the unincorporated community Wilbur Heights.