Richard Franklin Hill

Dick was born on February 19, 1927 at 1206 Sunset Ave. Richmond Heights, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis). His father, Leon B. Hill, was a steel mill worker, a wall paper hanger and finally a grocery store co-owner for eighteen years until he retired. His mother, Alma Lee Hill was very active. She would go up and down the streets, knocking on doors, selling the wallpaper jobs, then acting as paste-boy for her husband. Dick recalls when he was about five, his family buying a building that had a grocery store and a two room apartment behind it where the three of them lived. The grocery store opened at 6:00 a.m. and closed at 6:00 p.m. He worked in the grocery store before and after school. He also worked at the school to pay for his lunch. After work at the store every night he would go down into the basement to work on restoring bicycles where he had a bicycle shop business since he was eleven years old. He would go up & down the block and buy used bicycles, rebuild them completely and then at Christmas, put them all on display at the grocery store and sell all of them at a good profit. That helped pay for his education. Thus, Dick's entrepreneurial spirit was born. This continued until three days before his eighteenth birthday, when he joined the U.S. Coast Guard. Dick served his country in the U.S. Coast Guard from February 16, 1945 to May 16, 1946. Dick attended the University of Missouri in Columbia from 1946 to 1949 earning a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. This is where he met and married his wife, Pauline Gavin on January 28, 1946. Together they had seven children, 12 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren and 1 great, great grandchild. The majority of Dick's positions were sales jobs. He began selling major construction equipment and moved on to sell concrete plants. As a result of his traveling, he stayed at motels quite often bringing home "millions" of miniature bars of soap. His children never knew that a bar of soap was not 1" x 1" to everyone else, until they went to their friend's homes to see full size "GIANT" bars of soap in their bathrooms! He actually has some of them left!! Some of the children remember going to work with Dick for a few days to a week, traveling with him. He would teach the children how to navigate with a map and expect them to get them to their next destination the next day. One of Dick's legacy's for his children was having "family meetings". This is where he gathered the whole family together in or around March to discuss their annual family vacation, usually held in July. This is where he would tell his children when and where they were going and ask each of them individually what we wanted to "pledge" monetarily towards gas for the trip. He would also have them "pledge" a monetary amount for their souvenirs. Thus, teaching his children the value of family and money at the same time. His children and grandchildren couldn't have had a better dad and grandpa. They often teased each other calling one another "Fatso Fogarty" and "Double Ugly". He always had "Chi Chi" bugs that tickled the grand children and great grandchildren. The children got a kick out of begging him to stick his finger in his coffee. He would always say, "No no, that would burn me!" then proceed to do so acting like he got burned. Everyone knew that Dick liked to save a buck. He often made something out of whatever he had instead of buying it. On one occasion, his daughter Jean found that he had made a binocular case out of her prized patent-leather purse! His granddaughter, Jenny received a birthday card that had obviously been "re-used" by cutting off the sentiment and names at the bottom of the card. He vehemently denied doing so! As a large family, they needed 4 gallons of milk every two days! If one of the children spilled milk, he would be the one crying as it cost a whole 3 cents! A large table was needed to seat a family of nine so he built one out of a huge door instead of buying one. Dick transformed a 1946 school bus into a camper for the family. He remodeled the inside with a table for eating, a couch,S beds and a kitchen. He and son, Rick painted the whole outside by hand. Even painting, "The Rolling Hills" on the water tank across the front of the bus. One of Dick's favorite stories about his son-n-Iaw, Mark was when his daughter, and he were leaving on their honeymoon, Dick had forgotten what kind of car his daughter had. He turned to Mark and asked, "Who's car is this?" Mark replied, "It's mine now!" One of Dick's hobbies was collecting vases from all around the world. His first, being a vase given to him by his mother that was hand painted by her friend. To date, the collection has over two hundred vases. Both Dick and Pauline had known AI and Willa Fuhr and traveled together for several years prior to Pauline's and AI's deaths. Eventually Willa and Dick, because they still pursued travel as the commonality, got together and married, celebrating their eighteenth anniversary in February 28, 2014. Together they traveled all 50 states, 126 countries and around the world 5 times. Dick and Willa lived together in Tonkawa for several years before moving into The Broadmoor Retirement Community in Tulsa in 2011. The greatest joys of his life were his family, traveling, reading, hard work and music. He instilled a great work ethic in his children, a sense of loyalty, strong family values, education and the value of the penny. This star is a favorite of his children as it was drawn on their hands (to the dismay of their mother) by their father sometimes when he would return home from work. Each child stood in line wanting to be the next hand drawn on. He was a son, husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and great, great grandfather, uncle, nephew, friend and HERO to all!!

Richard Franklin Hill

February 19, 1927 - May 24, 2014