Lillie Mae Fleming was born Sept 3, 1882, in Rankin, Kentucky, to William Simpson Fleming and Sarah Frances Dunnegan Fleming. She was the fourth of nine children, and the first girl, born to the Flemings. Lillie was born in the family's one-room log cabin, on their farm at the foot of the Cumberland Mountains. In 1892 the large family had outgrown the small farm. At the urging of Wm's cousin Polean Victory, the Flemings packed up their belongings, shipped them to Texas, then traveled by train to their cousin's Texas farm. Eventually they sold their Kentucky farm at a profitable price of $800.
In the fall of 1896, Lillie's father bought a different farm in Montague, TX, and that December the family made the trip by covered wagon.
After a few years in Texas, the family moved to Oklahoma. Lillie attended school and earned a teaching certificate in Hobart, OK. It was in Hobart where she met Josiah Micagiah "Cage" Pilcher, when they were both attending a teaching workshop.
Cage and Lillie married June 5, 1906, a double wedding with her brother Fred and his bride Myrtle. They stayed in Hobart until 1920, then moved with their four children to Beckham County, OK, North Fork Township, which eventually became Carter. Two more children were born to this marriage after the family settled into their Carter farm.
Cage and Lillie were the parents of:
William Rogers Pilcher, 1907-1973;
Curtis Leroy Pilcher, 1909-1970;
Frances Jane Pilcher, 1912-1924;
Lillie Mae Pilcher (Street), 1916-1998;
Elizabeth "Betty" Pilcher (Newman), 1921-2011;
Dorcas Marie Pilcher, 1925-1950

In 1969, at the age of 86, Lillie Mae Fleming Pilcher did something for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren that everyone should do for their own: she wrote her life story, describing in detail the childhood pioneer's life at the turn of the century. It is a 9-page, single-spaced, typed autobiography, from which this great-grandchild has written her obituary, 41 years after her death.