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Willard Edwin Graves (1880-1966), an American missionary and educator, was born in Oak Hill, Clay County, Kansas, on April 5, 1880. His wife, Almyra Alford Graves was born in Beloit, Kansas, on May 31, 1884. Both graduated in June 1907 from Kansas Wesleyan University and were married that same month.

Willard and Almyra Graves were commissioned by the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church to serve as teaching missionaries in Rangoon, Burma beginning in 1908. Willard taught and later served as principal of the Methodist Episcopal Church School for Boys in Rangoon. Almyra suffered ill health and returned home for a year. She returned to Burma, but her health deteriorated again, which necessitated their final departure for the United States in 1913. She died on July 7, 1914.

Following his wife's death, Graves earned his master of arts degree at the University of Chicago. He never returned to the mission field, though he remained an ardent supporter of missions all of his life. He married Edna B. Murphy in 1915. They had four children. He continued to teach in Kansas and Colorado, and later became a sales representative for a company that published textbooks in New York. He died in Milwaukee on December 10, 1966.

Benjamin Franklin Hill (1872-1959), American Minister, was an ordained clergy member of both the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church, who served in a number of churches in the Southern United States, Canada, and California. Hill was born in West Virginia, possibly in Nicholas County, which was where he met his future wife, Georgia Moffeit Summers. He taught for ten years before becoming an ordained minister in the West Virginia Conference. Hill also authored various newspaper articles and a book entitled, "Morning Star" which was a paraphrase of the Bible.  Part of his ministry was to the Pottowattomi Tribe in Kansas and the Osage and Cherokee Tribes in Oklahoma where he built schools and churches. Hill homesteaded in Canada and struck oil in Texas.  He finally retired to California after thirty-three years of service to the church.