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Richard G. Hilton, b. 1933 Based on interviews conducted in June and July, 2012 A Dirty Joke Dick Hilton recalled that on Halloween, he, Dick Demarest and Tony Rosetti went out to participate in the traditional Halloween rituals, including tipping over Sue Nichols’ and Bill Mott’s privy. Sue and Bill lived on the west side of Lake Street next to the Fair Haven School. Sue is remembered as being Nancy McIntyre’s grandmother. Dick does not remember exactly when this prank occurred but it happened before he had a driver’s license. The boys snuck into the yard and Dick Hilton and Dick Demarest began to push on each corner of the back of the outhouse; at the same time Tony pushed in the middle. The privy got almost to its tipping point when the boys heard Sue yelling inside it. They stopped pushing but it was too late. Sue was “screaming mad” when she managed to pull herself out of the upended privy, that is, until she saw Tony. Tony had fallen into the privy pit and emerged covered with human wastes up to his chest. The sight of him made her forget her anger and roar with laughter. So the boys had to take Tony home where, in his yard, he stripped down to his underwear to be hosed off with the garden hose. Then Tony went into his house and to his tub. That was the last that the other boys saw Tony that night. Since Tony ended up owning a septic service, Dick jokingly wondered if this incident was how he got his start. Brief family tree: Edna Pettit} John Pettit} Lena Pettit Hilton Richard Hilton Marjorie Hilton Stevenson Dick Hilton Richard George Hilton, life resident of Fair Haven, was born in 1933 at Auburn Memorial Hospital. He is the father of three daughters: Monique, Michelle and Marnie and the grandfather of six: Michael and Justin, Brian and Tim and Kaya May and Fisher. Another granddaughter, Sara Dickerson, died at age 23, of a rare disease, MPS (mucopolysaccharidosis). It is unusual for a child to live longer than about age 10 years with this rare disease. Sara’s Mother, Monique, in memory of Sara, has organized several annual walk/run races in Fair Haven, to raise money for the MPS association. ---PAGE BREAK--- Ancestry: Dick Hilton’s mother, Marjorie Hilton (1912-2004) was born to Lena Pettit Hilton 1884-1972) and Richard Hilton (1882-1919). Dick’s grandfather, whom Dick is named after, died at age 37 in 1919, during the flu epidemic, and is buried at Sterling Center Cemetery. Left as a young widow with three children, Dick’s grandmother, Lena Pettit Hilton took in sewing to provide for her children, Freda, (who married a Guthrie and who recently died at age 100), Marjorie and Robert (Porky). Later she took in old folks. Her home was on the corner of Lake and Hume Streets in Fair Haven. Dick’s mother was raised in that house as was Dick. Now Dick’s daughter, Monique, lives in the same house. Lena died in 1972 and is buried in Sterling Center Cemetery. Lena’s parents, Dick’s great-grandparents, from the Sterling area, were Edna Pettit (1864-1942), who is buried at Springbrook and who died when Dick was small, and John Pettit (1860-1950), who is also buried at Springbrook. John had been a mule teamster for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Edna and John had at least six children: Jack, Gerry, Bob, Jum (Arlo), Lena, (Dick’s grandmother) and Vern. Dick’s mother, Marjorie, was raised in Fair Haven and graduated from Fair Haven High School in about 1929. She told Dick that she used to clean house for Leslie and Pearl Mendel and saw KKK robes hanging in one of their closets. Dick was still a young boy when World War II broke out and his mother went to school in Buffalo to become a “Rosie the Riveter.” A note in the ---PAGE BREAK--- Fair Haven Register, Thursday, May 28, 1942 states: …”Marjorie Hilton has graduated from the Curtiss-Wright training school of fabrication and is now employed at the Curtiss-Wright Corporation Airplane Division in Genesee St., Buffalo.” She worked on a drill press and also installed gauges in airplanes until the end of World War II. Dick was only about nine years old when she left, and he did not understand the war situation and why his mother had to be away. It was a tough time for him. He believes it caused him to fail fifth grade the first time since his mind was “elsewhere.” Dick lived with his grandmother, Lena Pettit Hilton during the war years. They had no phone so Marjorie wrote letters to her mother and son, and Lena wrote back. Every three months or so, says Dick, Marjorie managed to come home for a weekend. After the War was over, Marjorie cashed in all the war stamps the family had purchased and used the funds for her education and perhaps a car. She went to the “Rochester School of Commerce.” Upon returning home, she worked for Hadcock Motors in Fair Haven until a job opened at Fair Haven National Bank. She worked at the bank until she retired. When Dick was 16, his mother married Reuben Stevenson (1911-1990), son of Ralph Stevenson, of Stafford Street. “It was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” said Dick. He died in 1990 and is buried at Springbrook Cemetery. Marjorie died in 2004 and is also buried at Springbrook. ---PAGE BREAK--- Back row from left: Marjorie Hilton, Aunt Freda Guthrie, Lena Hilton (Dick’s grandmother), Edna Pettit (great-grandmother). Front row: Jeanie Wright, Dick’s cousin and Dick on tricycle. Photo taken about 1936. Memories of Fair Haven Some of Dick Hilton’s earliest memories involved watching his neighbor’s home, since he lived across the street from a noted and unusual Fair Havenite: Robert D. Hill. Construction contractor, mayor, seller of Springbrook Cemetery plots, ice harvester and seller, employer of many local teenagers, musician, fudge maker, opera lover, Bob Hill was well-known in the community. Dick can remember timbers being transported, probably by truck, to Bob Hill’s property from the dismantling of the railroad trestle at North Fair Haven. Dick does not think he had begun school yet. He also remembers watching men fill the ice house behind Bob’s home. Dick got all bundled up and went across the road to watch the men from the side. He believes one of the truckers was Lytle Van Patten, who lived on Victory Street. Later Dick rode with Bob Hill when he delivered ice and remembers going to Leafy McGuire’s store in North Fair ---PAGE BREAK--- Haven, next to what was later Russ Cramer’s and then Shirley Craine’s store. Dick recalls once going to Hayward’s Store on South Main Street to buy a Bit-O-Honey candy bar. He also recollected riding by horse and buggy up Victory Street and south to his grandmother’s old farm where Dave and Barb Vine now live on Sterling Station Road. He also remembered hearing about local art professor Walter Long helping to create the faces of four of our presidents at Mount Rushmore. This occurred somewhere between 1934 and 1939. Dick remembers seeing Paul Wilkinson, who owned his own dairy, delivering milk on his street. During foul weather Paul delivered milk from a stone boat (skid) and a team of horses. He also recalls going to Turner Brothers coal office on Main Street, with his mother, so she could buy car insurance from one of the Turners. He and other boys used to go to Mendel’s store and read magazines, which was not allowed, but Dick said they justified their actions because the families bought their shoes from Mendel’s. Every boy needed a haircut; Dick went to John Ryder, Walt Wall, or Keith Conroy. He recalled that the barbershop moved around quite a bit. One location was at the west end of the block on Fancher Avenue and Main Street, in a small addition to the building known as the Spaulding Block. In 1955, a fire destroyed that block. Dick and Walter (Buddy) Parsons were the two that turned in the alarm to the fire department. Other barbershop locations were at the old bank, Randolph Schaffer’s (“Skiball’s”) restaurant and lastly on the east end of Mary’s Restaurant. Joe Sutter later barbered there. One Saturday Dick had a terrible toothache so on a Sunday morning, when he was perhaps 12 or 13, he went to Dr. Turner’s cottage on Bay Street for a tooth extraction. He was ushered into a room he thought might be a living or dining room that contained a dentist’s chair, where Doc Turner pulled his tooth. Afterward, the dentist threw the tools back into the glass cabinet. Dick began first grade at Fair Haven with Mrs. Iva Wright as his teacher, whom he also had for grade two. For grades three and four Dorothy Ingersoll was his teacher. Ida Mae Hill taught fifth grade his first time through. He felt himself lucky to have Mrs. Gilmer for grade five the second time through as well as grade six. Dick remembers hearing the school bell tolling in the mornings. It must have made quite the impression on Dick that someone had contracted head lice in elementary school, requiring his head to be shaved. In 1946 or 1947, he began school at Red Creek, graduating in 1952. George Butler and Mary Eva Leonard Rasbeck were two members of his graduating class. Dick has memories of attending one of the last football games held at Red Creek Central School. The next year the new sport was soccer. ---PAGE BREAK--- Dick Hilton, perhaps in first grade The War Years Dick Hilton does not remember hearing about Pearl Harbor immediately but does remember many family discussions about it. Not many months afterward, his mother left to work in Buffalo for the duration of World War II, affecting him deeply. Since Dick then lived with his grandmother, Lena Hilton, he got to know some of the old folks she took in and cared for. One gentleman she took in was Isidor Huok (1867-1950), who told Dick that he had been about a mile from the Titanic when it sank. Mr. Huok arrived from Germany into the USA at age 14. Dick remembers Mr. Huok listening to war news on the radio; Mr. Huok hated Hitler. Dick said he learned a lot from Mr. Huok, who was blind but still kept a garden with perfectly straight rows and deeply hilled potatoes. Mr. Huok put strings in the plot and felt his way along those to tend his beautiful garden. Isidor Huok is buried in the potter’s field at Springbrook Cemetery. Mr. Moak, Paul Schaffer’s and Sharon Wheeler’s grandfather, also lived at the Hilton home. Mr. Moak had built boats for B. I. Card in North Fair Haven. ---PAGE BREAK--- One time during the war years, Dick Hilton rode in a Model A Ford with his Uncle Arlo to Auburn to get 50 pounds of black marketed sugar for Randolph Schaffer’s (Skiball’s) restaurant in downtown Fair Haven. Sugar was heavily rationed at that time. He also recalls walking to the Lake Street side of Bradley’s market where several people were congregated. A band concert was being held and speeches were being made to motivate people to buy war bonds. All through this time period he and his family bought war stamps to aid in the war effort. His mother later used the proceeds for her education. He recollected that Reba Turner did Red Cross work during the War and probably helped with war bond drives as well. He recalled her taking donations. He remembers a sign on the corner of Main and Lake Streets with World War II soldiers’ names posted. Beginning in 1944, German Prisoners of War were held on the east hill of Fair Haven Beach State Park, where the old CCC camp was located in the 1930’s. The number of German prisoners interned eventually reached about 200. Dick Hilton recalled watching the prisoners shovel sidewalks in front of his house in the winter. He recalls that on one hot summer day, the prisoners set up a ladder and climbed over the fence to “escape the camp” and go for a swim in Lake Ontario. Many park visitors panicked and left the park. Soon the prisoners were rounded up and taken back to camp without anyone attempting a permanent escape. Tony Rosetti and Dick rode their bikes to the Park in order to see what the POWs looked like. They were impressed with the T-bone steak bones they saw in the trash. That type of food unlike the food available in the rationing system that those on the home front dealt with each day. It was easier being a German prisoner of war in the USA than being shot at home and the food was better for a malnourished German soldier. They experienced better treatment, better nutrition and better health care. Dick recalls that Doctor Hanford, who was the medical officer for the POW camp, wrecked his car tangling up with an army truck on the narrow roads leading to the camp. Burt Beshures delivered coal to North Fair Haven. Dick remembers that one time when Burt was in the Park, he could hear Morse Code being sent or received. Soon the state Police arrested two German Prisoners of War. Dick remembers that his grandmother bought meat at S. T. MacArthur’s store. S. T. weighed the chunks of meat with his butcher knife “accidently” resting on the scale, according to Hilton family lore. Dick was told that the family ate horse meat during the War. While Dick Hilton was in elementary school in Fair Haven, the students collected milk weed pods. The “floss” in the pods was sent to Michigan to make life preservers for the military during the War. Even school children on the home front, such as Dick and his classmates, participated in the war effort by such deeds. ---PAGE BREAK--- Fun Stuff Besides the accident that befell Tony Rosetti when the boys tipped over the privy on Halloween, Dick Hilton engaged in some of the annual ritualistic activities that went on in Fair Haven at that time. The local boys moved the bandstand that was on wheels onto Main Street. They also moved cars from Hadcock Motors used car lot out into the street. When Dick was young, during the summer, he and his friends spent time in the woods beyond the north end of Richmond Avenue, building “camps.” He and Tony Rosetti once even built a two-story camp with a front porch. He and other boys in the neighborhood would play “scrub” baseball where each player would work his way up to bat; no teams were formed and a varied number of fielders could play. He and his friends would swim off the dock at the Pleasant Beach Hotel. Ed and Mildred Hadcock owned the hotel then. Dick liked to read Zane Gray books, Red Rider BB gun information and cowboy stories. Once, he and some friends rode their bikes to Wolcott to see a movie. Because the Palace Theater was packed with people, he recalled being forced to stand up during the movie after pedaling those ten miles. Many African American migrants had come to the area for seasonal work; they self- segregated, filling the right side of the theater, as they must have been forced to do in the South. Many others were in attendance as well, filling the theater. Dick sometimes took a morning bus to Oswego in order to go to movie matinees and then return home on the evening bus. He saw movies with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Wallace Beery. Dick listened to the radio as a boy. His favorite shows were The Lone Ranger and Jack All American Boy. These shows came on at 5 PM, just the right time to get him into the house for dinner. Other shows he recalled were Portia Faces Life, The Harried Housewife, One Man’s Family, Inner Sanctum and Amos and Andy. Dick’s first car was a 1940 light green Mercury convertible that had once been owned by Dr. Griggs. Dr. Griggs had traded it in for a new car at Hadcock Motors after the War. Dick’s mother, who worked at Hadcock Motors by then, actually signed for the car and then turned it over to Dick when he was 16. He said that over time, that car had three motors. Nearly every boy in Fair Haven was allowed to use Roy Maynard’s garage to work on their cars, though Roy asked those who used his tools to clean them up and put them away when they were done. Dick, Max Reed and others helped Roy when he needed it. Dick recalls that Mary Anne Van Speybroeck went to Roy Maynard’s garage one day to fill a tire on her bicycle. She had never put air in any sort of tire before. She filled it so full that she blew out the tire. He also remembered that Harry VanSpeybroeck, her husband, was not allowed to buy groceries in Fair Haven because he was a Roman Catholic. He had to travel to Red Creek to buy his groceries. ---PAGE BREAK--- When Dick got older, he visited the restaurants. He recalls that a new State Trooper, Mr. Prosser, was going to clean up the village and stop the pranks of the rowdy boys. One day he came into Mary’s Restaurant while Dick was there, put his Trooper Stetson hat, rim side up, on the glass top of the Wurlitzer juke box and ordered some dinner. Rink Garner was in the restaurant smoking a cigar. As he left, Rink flicked the butt of the cigar into that Stetson, where it began to burn through the hat. After dinner Prosser donned the Stetson and left the restaurant. He walked to his Trooper car, straight and tall, with smoke coming out of the top of his hat. On March 17-18, 1955, Dick and Bud (Walter) Parsons were driving through the village and when they arrived at the center of town, they noticed a vapor drifting across the street like fog rolling in. The smell of smoke told them something was desperately wrong. Dick said they stopped at Roy Maynard’s garage where Bud hit the fire alarm on the telephone pole and Dick went across the street and upstairs. He wanted to tell Harold Wallace that the entire business block was on fire and to get his family out from their over-the-store apartment. The Working Life As a “kid,” Dick Hilton mowed lawns and delivered newspapers (fifth grade). As he got older, he picked beans at Martini’s on West Bay Road, cherries on Stiles Farm near Red Creek and apples at the Younglove Farm near North Wolcott. Later, he worked for George Green wiring houses but he does not recall if he got paid. A small restaurant was located in the Mendel Block that George Green had owned for a time. When Art Campbell ran it, Dick worked there as a short order cook. Dick Hilton’s Senior Picture ---PAGE BREAK--- While in high school, in 1951, Dick signed up for the Naval Reserves. He went active right after he graduated, in 1952. He reported the naval station at Bainbridge, Maryland for basic training, going from there to Baltimore to Norfolk, VA. He was an Engineman Apprentice when he reported to his ship. He was on the USS Payute, a sort of tug, which went to Cuba. While Dick was performing maintenance duty, he was injured when a spare parts rack fell on his head, knocking him out. He was placed in Portsmouth Naval Hospital in VA for a couple of months and then he was sent home. He decided to try college and went to Oswego State for a year. He found that he did not like the political situation there. So he went to work for the railroad. His job was helping to tear out the railroad tracks between Fair Haven and Cato. Navy photo of Dick Hilton In 1959 Dick went to work on the Locks. He worked at various locations for six years until about 1965 when he joined the carpenters union. He worked through the union until he was 55. He was a millwright, cleaning, repairing and replacing turbines when the atomic plants were under ---PAGE BREAK--- construction. He became a construction foreman on the Fitzpatrick and Nine Mile II plants. At age 55 he returned to work at the Locks, retiring at 65. Organizations Dick Hilton was a 25 year member of the Moose Lodge in Palmetto, FL. He has been a member of the George Ingersoll American Legion Post for 55 years; he holds the office of chaplain. This Post was created in 1921, after World War I. He notes that during the five years of World War II, the Legion building sat idle. It seems to be near that point again since there are so few active members and little financial support. Dick says that the Legion is responsible for placing 300- 400 American flags on the graves of area veterans for Memorial Day. Dick was a founding member of the Bayside Cruisers Car Club. He says that Del Slocum was instrumental in getting the club up and running. The car club took on the big project of restoring the 1923 Model T Ford fire truck originally purchased by the Fair Haven Fire Department long before. Residents may see the truck driven in our Independence Day parades. This truck had been stored in Bob Hill’s side lot, surrounded by junk and brambles. Some members of the car club removed it from its resting spot, and replaced its engine with one from a spray rig donated by Dick Forscutt. The members restored the car’s body and “heart” so that it again can take to the roads once a year. These days Dick helps out with the annual car show held during the Independence Day celebration. You may see Dick Hilton riding around in his bright red 1929 Model A roadster. Once in a while he may take out his 1953 blue and silver Lincoln Capri two-door hard top. Perhaps you can give a wave to this life resident of Fair Haven.