Robert Lee Wiley was born June 30, 1874 or 1875 near Warrensburg, Johnson, Missouri to Enoch Evert Wiley and Manerva Josephine Thomas. Robert would go by his middle name "Lee" all of his life. (The birth year is listed as 1874 on the gravestone, but 1875 on Robert's WWI Draft Registration. It is unclear which is the correct date.)

In the 1880 census, the Wiley family was living in Virgil, Vernon, Missouri. In 1884 when Lee's sister Dora Pearl was born, the Wileys were living in El Dorado Springs, Cedar, Missouri.

Lee's siblings included Barbara Ellen (b. 1867), William Thomas (b. 1868, Charles Edward (b. 1871), John V (b. 1873), Perlia I. (b. 1879), James E (b. 1880), Dora Pearl (b. 1884), and Lillie May (b. 1888).

On 27 September 1897, Lee married Hulda Bertha Clara Tingler in Woodward County, Oklahoma Territory.

The 1900 census shows the Wiley family as living in Webster, Woodward, Oklahoma. Lee's eldest daughter Minnie May was born in 1899. Their other children included Lillie Pearl (b. 1901), Florence Ellen (b. 1903), twins Robert Collier and Theodore Lee – who both died as infants, Cecil George (b. 1907), Claude August (b. 1910), Virginia Lee (stillborn 1912), Verna Caprice (b. 1914), Sybil Hope (b. 1917) and Naomi Jean (b. 1922).

In the first ten years, Lee and Hulda moved nine times. Lee would buy small farms, fix them up and then sell them. He had a farm in Kingfisher County which they called the "Sandhill Place." In Blaine County they had a place called "Redhill Place." The house was on a hill and the dirt was red keel. The red stain would not come out of the clothes. Cecil was a baby then, and they lived in Woodward County in the Moscow Flats

In March 1914, the Wiley family moved from Moscow Flats, Oklahoma to Baca County, Colorado. They had two wagons: One was covered and the other one was a spring wagon. The trip took 10 days. Lee drove one wagon and a neighbor from Mooreland, Oklahoma, Phillip Caldwell, drove the other. Phillip's two brothers, Bill and Walt Caldwell were also settlers in Colorado. Lee Wiley and a neighbor had gone earlier to Colorado where Lee built a one room house of flat rock put together with mud. The rocks were hewed out with sledge hammers from sandstone.

When they first arrived in Colorado, they stayed for awhile in an old school house. The rock house Lee had built was one room and the roof had three ridge logs on top and split cedar along the sides and then was covered with mud. Minnie, Florence and mother slept in a wooden frame with covers in it, which they called a trundle bed. They pulled it out at night into the middle of the floor and pushed it under the parents' bed in the daytime. Cecil and Claude slept with the parents. Right after they moved into the one room rock house, a rain storm came. It rained for three days and three nights; the roof leaked and there was not a dry place in the house except under the table.

There was no place to get supplies near, but within the year, Lee and daughter Florence took two wagons and went 88 miles to Lamar for supplies, Lamar being the nearest railroad town. There were two horses on each wagon. The roads were dirt rut roads all the way. Florence drove the wagon with cement on it and Lee drove the lead wagon loaded with lumber, etc. They built a 14 X 20 foot room and used it for a living room-bedroom combination. Later another rock room was built onto the westside for the boys. Later Elbert, Kansas got a railroad and was the nearest railroad town.

The homestead was on Whitby Creek. There were 320 acres, and later Lee filed for an additional 320 acres. The government allowed this on hilly land for grazing purposes only. He also bought several 1/2 sections from other settlers. (One was Bill and Walt Caldwell who were from Moorland, Oklahoma and old friends.) Lee farmed about 200 acres; corn for grain, broomcorn for a cash crop, cane for hay and later milo maise. The rest of the land was used for cattle. They raised a big garden and had peach and cherry trees, a small grain house, a chicken house and a barn. One year all four of the oldest children were allowed to plant pinto beans and take care of them and keep the money. They would get up early every morning before school and walk the 1/2 mile to the field and pull and pile a row or two apiece before school. Later when dry, a tarp was taken to the field and the beans pounded out on the tarp.

When the Wiley children started school in Colorado, they went to a one-room school down in the Canyon at the mouth of Whitby Creek where it ran into the Creso Creek. They went to school in a buggy as it was three or four miles to the school.

Florence stayed home to help her mother as she was sick. Hulda almost died just before moving to Colorado at the birth of a still born child, Virginia Lee Wiley. The third year in Colorado a new school was built. Lee was on the school board and the new school was called the Wiley school. It was about one mile east and one mile south of the Wiley home. (The school's nickname was "Ignorant Ridge.")

When Lee registered for the WWI draft on 12 Sep 1918, he is listed as living in Estelene, Baca, Colorado with his wife Hulda and family.

The 1920 census shows the Wiley family living in Regnier, Baca, Colorado.

Hulda and Lee separated some time before 1930 as Lee was living in Carriso, Baca, Colorado by himself at the 1930 census. They eventually divorced. Hulda moved first to Peralta, New Mexico and then to McMinnville, Yamhill, Oregon where she passed away 3 April 1943 and is buried there at the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.

Lee was married again to Leora Katie Ormiston in Pritchett, Baca County, Colorado on 2 October 1930. Leora and Lee had four more children including: Stanley Lee (b. 1931), Sylvia Bell (b. 1933), William Oscar (b. 1934) and Charles Edward (b. 1935)

Lee Wiley was quoted as saying he was half cur dog and half coyote. But in reality (according to his Granddaughter Nellie), his background was mostly British Isles -- Scotch English and Irish.

Lee passed away on 14 Sep 1953 in Lamar, Prowers County, Colorado at the age of 78. He is buried in the Springfield Cemetery in Springfield, Baca County, Colorado.