Peter Frost (Skip) Hilder, Jr. died on March 15, 2021 in Henrico County, Virginia. He was the son of Peter Frost Hilder and Aimee Carlile (John S. Carlile, Allan Douglas Carlile, Mary Ellen Gittings Carlile, Mary Jackson Williams Gittings, Katherine (Katrana) Jackson Williams, George Jackson, John and Elizabeth Brake Jackson. He was nicknamed Skip to distinguish him from his father in the family.
Skip was born on December 3, 1946, in Bay Shore, New York. Skip’s father was a patent lawyer, initially from Washington DC, who commuted into Manhattan every day on the train. Skip’s father had developed a love of sailing and boating after having moved with Aimee to Long Island after Army service during World War II. Aimee’s mother was dying of cancer, and they moved into her house in Brightwaters, NY, so Aimee could care for her mother. It was the mother’s doctor who suggested Peter get a sailboat to keep busy while his wife was caring for her mother.
Skip was born shortly after his Carlile grandmother’s death. At the time, his father owned a small sailboat. Four years later, Peter bought an older 34 foot cabin cruiser on which the family spent summer weekends anchored at Fire Island and vacation trips to Long Island Sound, Shelter Island, Connecticut’s rivers and Mystic Seaport. As Skip grew, he developed a love of boating he shared with his father.
In 1955 Peter Sr. took a job with Ford Motor Company and moved his family to Birmingham, Michigan. During the summer of 1956 Peter and Aimee Hilder took two weeks to sail the boat up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal to Buffalo, through Lake Erie, up the Detroit River to Lake St Clair. From there vacations on the boat took the family to Put-in-Bay and Cedar Point, Ohio, in Lake Erie. They also cruised up the Canadian shore of Lake Huron to Tobermory, Georgian Bay, and Manitoulin Island. Both Skip and his younger sister Jane learned to be good crew, helping with line handling and docking, setting anchor and operating the boat as they got to be teenagers. One of the more stressful chores was having rock-watch on the forward deck as Peter piloted the boat up Baie Fine, an uncharted narrow rock-strewn fjord in Killarney Provincial Park.
In June 1961, Skip had a bicycle accident that resulted in a bad break to his upper leg. He spent four weeks in the hospital in traction, and the remainder of the summer in a body cast at home. Skip’s leg did not heal well, stopped growing, and remained several inches shorter than his other leg for the rest of his life. The resulting limp made participation in many sports difficult and left Skip vulnerable to back trouble. He could wear a heel lift on one shoe when wearing leather street shoes, but that does not work for an athletic shoe.
Skip graduated an honor student from BIrmingham Seaholm High School in 1964. For a short time he was an engineering student at the University of Michigan. Then he dropped out unsure what field he wanted to pursue. He worked afterwards at a tool and dye maker and completed night classes at Wayne State University in Detroit. Then he enrolled at Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, IL, where he met his future wife Rhea Dawn McKinney. They were married May 30, 1969 in Seymour, IN.
The couple lived in Indianapolis for a time, then moved later to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, living on a boat in Trappe, then buying a house in Cambridge, MD. Their daughter Danielle Renee was born in 1973 while they lived in Cambridge. Skip, who was quite gifted mechanically, tried to get established as a marine mechanic, then joined the Maryland Marine Police. Their job is to enforce fishing regulations and recreational boating laws as well as search and rescue in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay. Over the years the family lived in various communities where Skip was stationed. Sons Joel Scott and Jonathan Andrew were born in 1977 and 1978 while they were living in Piney Point, MD. Later they lived in Arnold, Riva and Annapolis, MD, at various times.
At one point Skip took a leave of absence from the Marine Police. He and Rhea took their family on an extended year-long trip with their camper trailer out West visiting many national parks and other scenic and educational sites around the country. They home schooled their three children for that year. One of the goals of that trip was to scout out a more affordable community where they might prefer to live.
The family returned to Annapolis area after that trip, but a few years later they moved to Traverse City, MI, so Skip could enroll in the Great Lakes Maritime Academy at Northwestern Michigan College studying to be a pilot on a Great Lakes freighter. Skip was successful in the program but he found it involved spending the summer as crew on a Great Lakes freighter. It was too difficult to leave his family for the entire summer. They retuned to Annapolis, MD, so that Skip could rejoin the Marine Police.
Some years later Skip injured his back slipping and falling on a wet boat deck. After his back did not recover well enough to return to patrolling the Chesapeake Bay, he received a disability retirement. The family moved back to Traverse City and lived there for a number of years. Their lives took a tragic turn when son Joel died suddenly in April, 1995.
Rhea and Skip were divorced in 1996. After son Joel’s death and his divorce, Skip joined a grief support group led by a Messianic Jewish rabbi with a congregation in Traverse City. Skip became quite interested in that religious philosophy which unites Judaism with evangelical Christianity. Later Skip was briefly married to Nancy Bennett of Kingsley, Mi, in 1999. They had met in the grief support group.
Skip continued to live in Traverse City and pursue his love of boating for a number of years. It was during this time in Traverse City that Skip suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed on his left side. A few years later he had another stroke that affected his speech and left him with a stutter.
But he still had a dream of sailing across the ocean to Israel, or of living on a sailboat in New England in the summer and in the Caribbean during the winter. Several times he bought a top quality sailboat in disrepair from an accident or neglect and worked on restoring it to good usable condition. HIs last sailboat was a 56 foot French-built boat that had been damaged by hitting rocks. He bought it in Newport, RI, in 2013 or 14 and worked on repairs and getting all the rigging and electronics in good working order. Then in the late fall of 2014 he set sail for the Caribbean with a friend as crew. They went as far as Bermuda where they rented a mooring for the remainder of the winter and spring.
At that point, Skip decided to bring his boat back to Annapolis, MD, and sell it. He explained that with his short leg and his weak left side he had too much difficulty maintaining balance and footing on the boat at sea where there is constant wave motion. Skip arrived in Annapolis with the sailboat in September 2015 and placed the boat with a yacht broker.
Skip returned to his ranch in Traverse City, late in 2015. But within a few years in late 2017 he sold that Michigan home and moved to Church Road, Virginia, near Petersburg. He bought a small house next door to the sustainable farm and learning center where his Michigan Rabbi had moved with his large family, Shortly after the move, he suffered a bad fall that resulted in breaking a number of bones. It took many months to recover with nursing care from some of the Rabbi’s sons before Skip could even move into his house. He lived there until March of 2020, when he moved to Beth Shalom Assisted Living in Henrico County, VA, near Richmond.
Skip Hilder died of kidney failure at Beth Shalom Assisted Living on March 15, 2021. He was buried in historic Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond, VA, on March 17, 2021, with his Rabbi officiating. He is survived by his daughter Danielle Renee Hilder of Wellford, SC, his son Jonathan Andrew Hilder of Pagosa Springs, CO, his grandson Dominic James Frederick Hilder, and by his sister Jane Carlile Hilder of Alexandria, VA.
