Following the Family Standard

Nearly 100 years old, alumna continues to support students and community

By Benjamin Kirk (’22)

Escape and rescue from the trappings of the deep snow in the high Sierra Nevada mountains had been grueling for Leanna Donner. At just 12 years old, she had witnessed and endured such horrors it would take her over 80 years to talk about it. Now, on the cusp of returning to safety, she sat and ate her second to last tiny ration of “jerky.”

After walking all day in the trail-breaking steps of the group leader through deep snow in the biting cold while starving on the edge of death, she looked at her last finger-sized piece of meat and gave in to her overwhelming hunger – eating her final ration before going to sleep.

The next morning, as everyone else savored their morsels before the day’s hike, Leanna Donner, pictured left, regretted that decision. Her 14-year-old sister Elitha took pity on her.

“Her older sister was…really good to her. Everybody was sitting around eating their breakfast piece, and she felt really sorry for her. She broke her piece and gave half to my great-grandmother [Leanna],” says Patricia Heiskell Hillman.

Hillman, a 96-year-old Fresno State alumna and supporter, reflects on her family history. She said both Leanna and Elitha had enough strength to eventually make their way into the safety of the Sacramento Valley with several others.

The story of the Donner Party is taught as part of the fourth-grade curriculum in California. Every year, Hillman visits classrooms to tell the story of her great grandmother, Leanna Donner App, providing a personal connection to a tragic but important part of California’s history.

Valley roots

1903: Weighing and loading grain sacks at the Tulare warehouse.

Hillman’s grandfather, Jefferson Davis Heiskell, moved to Tulare in 1886 to build a grain warehouse and eventually start a livestock feed business. That business, J.D. Heiskell and Company, Inc., grew into a thriving international company.

1920: First feed truck.

Born in Tulare, Hillman grew up around the business her father and aunts inherited. She attended Tulare Union High School, and, following in the footsteps of her mother and sister, she enrolled at Fresno State just as World War II was coming to an end. A flute player, she joined the Bulldog Marching Band and the Fresno State Symphony.

“There were not very many men because they were in the service. I usually played snare drum or flute, and I played bass drum in the marching band for a couple of years.” Hillman graduated summa cum laude in 1949 with a double major in English speech and music.

Hillman taught at Roosevelt High School in Fresno for four years. While living in Fresno, she met Dale Hillman on a blind date, and they married a short time later. Hillman came from a farming family in Tulare and had served in the Coast Guard during World War II.

Pat and Dale settled in Tulare and had four children. While raising them, Pat worked as a substitute teacher. She later taught and coordinated the program for gifted high school students. Additionally, she served on the board of directors of the family business, a position she still holds. After her father’s death, Dale became CEO of the company in 1972.

A legacy of support

In 1947, Patricia Hillman and her sister, Eleanor, demonstrated flute and French horn to interested elementary students.

Throughout her life, Pat Hillman has been deeply involved in her community in Tulare and beyond. She continued her passion for music as a founding member and musician in the Sequoia Symphony Orchestra, even performing as a soloist. She was involved in the Tulare Ag Center and saw it become the International Agri-Center and expo it is today. She is a founding member of the Tulare Historical Society and Museum and is deeply involved with her local First Congregational Church. She was also a Tulare City School Board trustee for 26 years and sat on the Tulare County Board of Education for 25 years.

Shortly after moving back to Tulare, she was invited by then-Fresno State President Arnold E. Joyal to join the President’s Advisory Board. That service was the catalyst to a lifetime
of service and financial support at Fresno State.

From gifts to the Ag One Foundation and other areas in the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology to gifts to the Bulldog Marching Band and scholarships in the Music Department, her wide range of generosity represents the depth of her involvement in agriculture, music and education. A lifelong Bulldogs football fan, she also supports athletics through the Bulldog Foundation.

While serving on the Library Leadership Board, she saw its importance as a University resource and supported several areas of the library. In 2005, she and her sister Eleanor were recognized as Library Donors of the Year after funding a study room in honor of their mother. She received the first Top Dog Award through the Fresno State Library in 2006. In 2002, she received the Common Threads Award from the Jordan College and Ag One Foundation, which honors women in agriculture. In 2024, she was awarded the Common Threads Tapestry Award, an honor only awarded three times in 28 years.

“I think philanthropy is one of the most important things you can do,” Hillman says. “My grandfather gave to so many farmers. He gave the money to get the seed to plant their crops. He set the standard for the rest of us.”

Dr. Rolston St. Hilaire (left), dean of the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, presents the Common Threads Tapestry Award to Pat Hillman.

With a family history of great-great grandparents who endured incredible hardship establishing a new path to California and a great-grandmother who narrowly survived to the grandfather who founded a company that would help feed the world, it seems fitting Hillman also supports the Food Security Project, which includes the Amendola Family Student Cupboard.

“Food is such an important part of our existence.”

Hillman says she feels blessed to be able to help people and her community, but she also feels that giving back is an integral part of living a fulfilling life.

“I am so fortunate that I have lived this long,” Hillman says. “I get up in the morning and know that I’m going to try and get through the day doing good for people and enjoying life at the same time. What could be better?”

– Benjamin Kirk is a communications
specialist in the College of Arts and
Humanities at Fresno State.