Cousin Memoriam

In the past month two of my cousins have passed away. This makes a total of five of the cousins that I grew up with who have now passed away at a younger age than I am now. I’d like to dedicate this blog post to them as I recount how my life has been affected by theirs.

Bruce Hill (1/14/1948-1/27/1992)

I was close to Bruce during most of my growing up years. Since we were both born in 1948 we were in the same grade in school. However, since his family lived at the other end of town, we only attended the same school during our high school years. There were a lot of other reasons why we were close. My father and his father were also the same age and were best friends during the last few years of high school as well when they lived just around the corner from each other. My father’s older sister married his father’s older brother. So while Bruce and I were technically not cousins (i.e. we did not share a grandparent), we had cousins in common (i.e. he was my cousin’s cousin) and we always acted like cousins.

Bruce’s parents married just a short time after my parents. Since my parents had purchased a house and his parent’s home was not yet ready for them to move into, his parents stayed for a few months in one of the semi-finished bedrooms on the second floor of my parents’ home. There was a dark brown metal-framed double bed (and not much else) up there that they used. But his parents had a somewhat rocky relationship and when things weren’t going well Bruce would often come to stay with us. I have a number of pictures of the two of us playing together as toddlers and then young children. Even though he lived about 5-6 miles away, it was not unusual to find him walking up the street to our house until things “blew over”.

When his parents finally divorced, his father was given full custody. That was a pretty unusual thing back in those days, but gives some indication of what the relationship was like. Although I didn't see him much after we graduated from high school, he remained in contact with my mother, who had a very loving and accepting attitude. He stayed in contact with her periodically for the rest of his life.

Bruce adopted the homosexual life style at a time when those types of relationships were more often kept “in the closet”. He died from a complications of AIDS just a few days after his 44^th birthday.

Bob Hill (10/5/1944-9/7/2010)

Bob (“Bobby”) was four years older than I and he was the cousin in between Bruce and I. While the age difference meant that we not as close growing up, there were still a lot of connections. As the oldest in my family, one would think that I would get all the new clothes and would pass them down to my younger brothers. But until I got to be taller than Bobby in my high school years, he was the one who got the new clothes and then passed them down to me first. So I grew up wearing his hand-me-downs.

When it came time to choose a college I was conflicted between a smaller school and a larger one. Although the larger one would offer more opportunities, I came from a small high school and a graduating class of about 160 and the thought of a large university was pretty scary. But Bobby had gone to Michigan State (enrollment back then was 44,000 on their single campus) and he convinced me to at least visit it and try it out. I did so, ended up liking it, and then attended there for the next five years (three years as an undergraduate and two years of graduate school).

He had graduated by the time I started my freshman year, but had also married and was living just a few towns away. Thus, my relationship became closer during those years. This continued even through my early married years when my wife and I would stop to visit on our annual visit to Michigan to see her family.

Bob and his wife also had a pretty acrimonious relationship and they later divorced with her getting custody of their two children. Bob had his degree in education and he then moved to Florida where he taught for many years, where he married and divorced a few more times. I did not see him but once or twice during the remainder of his life, but his primary contact, like Bruce’s, was through my mother. He would often come back to Connecticut during the summer and stay with her. He passed away at the age of 65.

Gary Pierpont (8/26/1952-1/20/2014)

Just as Bobby was four years older than I, Gary was four years younger. He lived only a couple of houses away, but as he had an older brother, Dave, just a few months younger than I, as well as an older sister, there were few reasons for us to get close, so he was the “pesky little brother” and Dave and I usually did not want him around.

Gary got his degree in Bible from Baptist Bible College. He did not lead a church, but he had a lot of other positive characteristics that enabled him to work with and help others in his quiet way. I didn't see him much in his later years. He passed away at the age of only 61 from a heart attack.

Craig Hill (2/18/1951-1/7/2016)

Craig was the younger brother of Bruce. Thus, just like my relationship with Gary was not close as I was much closer in age to Dave, so I had a close relationship with Bruce and not Craig. He had the same type of relationship with my mother though and she was the primary contact with him for many years.

Craig served with the Army during the Vietnam War and became one of the many individuals who were exposed to Agent Orange. By the time he returned I had moved to Pennsylvania and so I lost personal touch with him. It was not until my mother’s memorial service in 2012 that I saw him again when he came up and re-introduced himself to me. Our relationship then became closer and he hosted an extended Hill-Russell family gathering at his home the following summer.

But by then it was apparent that his exposure to Agent Orange was going to be the eventual cause of his death. He had survived one serious bout of cancer, but when the second one happened he decided that the chemo and other treatments for it were not worth it. So, although the official cause of his death will be attributed to cancer, it was really his exposure to Agent Orange that was the start of it. He was only 64.

Pat (Pierpont) Burns Gatewood (10/28/1957-2/6/2016)

Pat (“Patty”) was the only one of these cousins who did not grow up in the same town. Her family lived in Prospect, the next town to the south. But 10 miles is not much. Since she was more than nine years younger than I and the opposite gender, I had little in common with her growing up. When I went away to college she was an eight-year-old. So she and my youngest brother had more in common – and their paths crossed many times over the years.

Our paths did cross during one significant time in her life. When she got married, the service was in a church only ten miles from where my wife and I were living, so we had the opportunity to attend. The ceremony was quite unique so I have always remembered it.

Following the wedding ceremony, she and her new husband had a joint baptism ceremony. Their being immersed and thus giving a public profession of their faith together was a very moving experience. What a great way to start your married life together!

She and her husband moved to California where for several years they lived not that far from my brother and sister-in-law. Later all of them became involved in missions. Pat was the Chief Administrative Officer for Global Teams (global-teams.net). Her daughter Steph (Burns) Villafranca also works for the same missions agency.

Pat passed away suddenly last weekend at the age of 58 as a result of a genetic brain condition and seizures. Although I have not physically crossed paths with Pat in several decades, it is nice to know that we will see each other again someday.