by daughter Kathleen Hill Carlisle
William Richardson Hill was born in Pasadena, California on August 7, 1917, to Fred G. Hill & Ethel Richardson Hill. His grandparents were early settlers of Pasadena, and had started a long tradition of Catalina summers in the late 1800s – the Richardson’s in 1878, and the Hill’s in 1890. Bill’s first summer on the Island was 1919, spent at 315 Catalina Ave. It was one of the 3 houses his Grandpa Hill built in 1908, on leased land from the Banning’s.
by daughter Kathleen Hill Carlisle
William Richardson Hill was born in Pasadena, California on August 7, 1917, to Fred G. Hill & Ethel Richardson Hill. His grandparents were early settlers of Pasadena, and had started a long tradition of Catalina summers in the late 1800s – the Richardson’s in 1878, and the Hill’s in 1890. Bill’s first summer on the Island was 1919, spent at 315 Catalina Ave. It was one of the 3 houses his Grandpa Hill built in 1908, on leased land from the Banning’s.
Dad lived such a great, long life, and had such a variety of wonderful experiences.
He got to see so much of the world, going to places in the early 1930s where few travelled – China, where he walked on the Great Wall; the Philippines, where he sailed into the eye of a hurricane; Hawaii, where he surfed on a redwood board he had to drag to the ocean; Cuba, where as a 17-year-old he brought back a gallon of rum; and Panama, where he told people that he swam through the Panama Canal (he was in the pool on the ship as it passed through).
He and Mom (wife Jeanne Hill) also ventured to Guadalajara, Cabo, La Paz, Mazatlan, Costa Rica, Tahiti, Russia, Ireland, England, Canada, and explored the Channel Islands.
I got to go with him on his last big adventure – a fishing trip to Cabo when he was 97! He must like fishing because he was willing to get up at 5 a.m., at a time when you typically couldn’t get him out of his pajamas before noon. He caught a beautiful Wahoo. Just what he wanted.
He was always industrious in his own way. When he was young, and while his friends spent their summers working all week in the grocery store for $2/week, Dad would go out three days a week, fish until noon, catch 100 pounds of barracuda and sell for 2 cents a pound, making his $2/day.
During the Rose Parade, this savvy 10-year-old would charge people a dollar to park on his lawn on Colorado Blvd, while he watched comfortably from his window.
There were so many different things he knew how to do, so many things he could fix. I think it was because he did so many different jobs. I could never figure out the order, but here are some examples:
• Worked at his dad’s Model T car lot
• Got his pilot’s license and owned and flew his own plane
• Worked at Maywood Motors
• Owned a trophy manufacturing business
• Worked at Lockheed, assembling planes
• Served as a photographer in the Army Air Corp during World War II
• Drove shoreboats at the Isthmus & Avalon
• Owned a mine
• Served National Ski Patrol
• Owned and bred race horses and Angus cattle with his first wife OrLynn Phillips and step-daughter Lindy on the family ranch called Wiki-Up in Santa Rosa
• Got his captain’s license and ran a fishing charter business
• Worked on gas and salt water lines in Avalon for Edison
• Installed plumbing with Bill Jones
• Did electrical work with “Mac” McLeish
