Hilda was a telephone operator living in Carrolltown, Pa. She was chief operator for the Huntingdon & Clearfield Telephone Exchange by 1922. In that year she underwent a serious head operation at the nearby Spangler Hospital. She became a Registered Nurse. In 1930, she was living in Pittsburgh as a nurse at the rented home of a Scottish widower, John P. O’Donnell, and his 13-year-old daughter Edith (aka Edythe). By 1940, she and John were a married couple in Pittsburgh. Hilda died from a brain tumor.

John immigrated from Scotland in 1887 and was naturalized in 1901. He was a labor solicitor for Donald McNeil at the Jenkins Arcade Building. He and his first wife Sadie and their daughter Edythe settled in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1930, John was a road inspector for Allegheny County. He was a retired clerk at the time of his death from acute bronchopneumonia and possible pulmonary tuberculosis.