John and Nellie took in a relative, a child, Samuel Lilly, who is listed on the 1910 census as a boarder. Samuel was a half brother of Elizabeth Hunter Atchison Walker. Their mother, Amanda Syverson Hunter Lily, moved from Wisconsin in 1888 to North Dakota, where she married John Lily and gave birth to four sons before she passed away in 1907 or 1909. After her death the children were farmed out to different relatives.