Lilyan and Hannah Golden

In 1931, William Golden, an upholsterer from Austria, was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife, the former Zora Murray, and their daughters, Lilyan and Hannah, when Zora died. For four years, while William struggled to find work during the Depression, the girls were often left on their own, filling time by going downtown, where they went to the movies with money they made by “finding” and redeeming milk bottles. 

In May 1935, on the recommendation of the local B’nai B’rith lodge, Lilyan (11) and Hannah (7) were admitted to the Home. According to Hannah, while their father was driving her and Lilyan to the Home, she realized where they were headed. “I was so mad at my father,” recounted Hannah about the moment she realized he had broken his promise to never put his girls in an orphanage, “that I grabbed the steering wheel and ran us off the road and into a ditch. I did it. And a truck had to pull us out.”

Once in the Home, and after completing the required isolation in the infirmary, the girls quickly adjusted to their new surroundings and fellow residents. 

At Isidore Newman School, Lilyan enjoyed singing and performing in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, often serving in principal roles. In the Home, too, Lilyan took center stage, including at the 1939 anniversary program when she debated the timely question, “Should Roosevelt Be Elected for a Third Term.”  Beyond performance, Lilyan enjoyed athletics, earned a strong academic record (National Honor Society), and was elected president of her senior class. At her Newman graduation in 1940, in addition to singing a duet with a classmate, Lilyan was selected as one of the class commencement speakers. Her topic, “Andrew Jackson: Builder of Democratic Ideals.”

After graduation, Lilyan returned to her father, who had moved to Overton, Texas. Lilyan took accounting classes at Tyler Commercial College and moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks. She soon relocated to New York where she met and married Mike Milner. They settled in Texas where they raised a family and she ran a business, Lilyan’s Hair Fashions. In 1992, at age 69, Lilyan earned her bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Texas in Tyler.

Lilyan died on December 31, 2020 at the age of 97. She was buried in Kilgore City Cemetery, Kilgore, Texas. 

Hannah remained in the Home until 1942, when she joined her father and sister in Overton, Texas. Hannah, too, enjoyed performing and demonstrated her prowess in dance, within and beyond the Home, buoyed by ballet lessons with professional dancer, Marge Belcher Champion. In 1939, in a concert at City Park Stadium presented by the Civic Symphony Orchestra, Hannah danced to Strauss’ Waltz and “Farandole” from Bizet’s “Carmen.”

For the Home’s Anniversary celebration that year, Hannah played the role of bad girl “Minnie Smellie” in Rebecca of “Sunnybrook Farm.” She would also later fondly recall the time she spent with volunteer “Big Sister” Florence Isaacson, who sent a driver to chauffeur Hannah to and from the Home for their visits.

Hannah Golden, 1939, in the Home’s courtyard, wearing her Spanish Dancer costume for a performance of The Nutcracker Suite. Courtesy of Hannah Golden Limerick.

Hannah Golden, right, with fellow Home resident Sonia Hirsch, entering the Home on the day of their confirmation, 1941. Hannah later noted that her dress had been purchased at D.H. Holmes Department Store. Courtesy of Hannah Golden Limerick.

While Hannah was in the Home, her father remarried. He reclaimed her in 1942, just before her last two years at Isidore Newman School. After finishing high school in Kilgore Texas, she got a job as a secretary at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. In 1947, she married Joseph Limerick, who worked in the grocery business while Hannah mothered their four children. 

As of December 2025, at age 98, Hannah lives in Schertz, Texas, outside San Antonio.

Hannah Golden Limerick, March 2018. Photo by author.