Aline Murray Kilmer, one of Stillwater’s most distinguished cultural figures, lived in White Hall Manor with her four children from 1919 until her death in 1941. A published poet, essayist and writer of children’s books, Aline Kilmer is usually introduced as “the widow of Joyce Kilmer”, the celebrated Catholic poet best known for the poem “Trees.” Joyce Kilmer never actually lived in Stillwater but died tragically during WWI in 1918 in the Second Battle of the Marne in France.

Alice Murray was born in Virginia in 1888. Her mother was a poet and her father the editor of the Norfolk Landmark newspaper. She grew up in New Jersey and attended Rutgers College Preparatory School in New Brunswick, where she met Joyce Kilmer. She went on to study at Vail-Dean School in Elizabeth and married Kilmer in 1908, following his graduation from Columbia University. While living in New York, Aline gave birth to five children in quick succession. Their daughter Rose died of polio at the age of five, shortly before her father’s deployment to France.

When she moved to Stillwater, Aline was a young widow of 31. She had been married for only a decade, and had four children under the age of 9 to raise on her own. She began to publish her own work in Harper’s Magazine and other publications which presented fine literature. Her works include: