Jeffrey Robert Hill

   Cause of his death was in infancy.

  General Notes:

Mary and Lawrence Hill stayed in Verona, New Jersey following the death of Jeffrey Robert because of the kindness shown at the time of Jeffrey's death. At the time of Jeffrey's death, they lived in a house on Pease Avenue. It was at the top of a very steep hill. Jeffrey died in winter, on a snowy day and the snow plows had not yet gotten to Pease Avenue. As a result, when the rescue squad was called, it couldn't get up the hill through the snow. All of the neighbors from the bottom of the hill to the top got out with snow shovels and shoveled the road so that the rescue squad could get up the hill. They then left Mary Allanson and Lawrence Hill (the parents of the deceased child) alone, but after Jeffrey's passing, were likewise very "quietly" helpful. It was then that Lawrence and Mary decided they were going to keep the family in Verona. Soon thereafter, they started looking for property and built a nice house located at 167 Sunset Avenue, which was completed just prior to the birth of their next child, Sara Lynn Hill, in 1951.

The couple employed the services of Mr. Henry Bonta, a registered architect, for the construction of their new house. The multi-level house, of which Lawrence was quite proud, was built into the side of a hill located on a very pretty site, overlooking a corner bend in the road. It featured a cathedral ceiling in the living room with a substantial fireplace, adjoined to a large play porch by means of bi-folding French doors. It was placed over an enormous basement area, half of which was Lawrence's workshop. The other half was a large room with high-silled windows located at grade level that functioned as an indoor recreation room.

The back yard was a wonderland for child hood play, complete with "The Rocks" (big split granite-like boulders where the children could play 'Cowboys and Indians') and a tire swing well-placed in a tree at the top of "The Woods", enabling riders to swing was out high over the side of the hill. In later years, Lawrence tackled a monumental weekend construction project, that of a series of terraced retaining walls, made up of field stones pulled out of the earth. It was an enormous undertaking, and kept him busy an entire summer. The result was a haven for chipmunks, which delighted the children who could watch them in the winter months thereafter. The yard always sported a vegetable garden in summer, and was adorned by fragrant cedar trees, a massive tulip (sycamore) tree outside the boys' bedroom window. Cherry and apple trees were later planted.

The Hill's decision to remain in and raise their family in Verona turned out to be a wise one. Their children each received an excellent public school education. The small town of Verona was divided into quadrants, each having its own elementary school (the Hill family being in the Brookdale Ave School quadrant) and the four quadrants were also centrally divided by a marvelous public park, which featured Duck Island (an island in the center of the lake, where the ducks and swans lived) and the Falls (a man-made waterfall / overflow system from the lake that fed a small stream that wound its way through the park, connecting with a brook low in the steep and deep woods that ran behind the house across the street from the Hill house.

"Verona Park traces its roots back to 1814, when a dam for a gristmill was built on the Peckman River forming what is now the 13-acre Verona Park Lake. In the 1930's, the Olmstead Brothers Landscape firm of Brookline, MA was commissioned to design a public park on the 54-acre park site. Frederick Law Olmstead, a landscape designer, made an amazing impact on landscape architecture during a time when citizens had a strong sense of civic pride. His massive public park works include Central Park in New York City, NY, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY and The Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachussetts". [Excerpt from the following webpage www.veronaliving.com/vpc]

This park provided the children with the opportunity for childhood joys from fishing and boating in the summer to ice-skating on the Lake in the winter. In addition, Lawrence Hill had built his home at 167 Sunset Avenue a mere half-block from an elite golf course, the Montclair Golf Course. The children likewise claimed this as their playground, playing ball and watching fireworks on the greens in the summer and sleigh riding on 'The Links" (steep hills) in the winter. The private golf course near their home also provided the Hill children with an opportunity to hone their entrepreneurial skills at a very early age. The girls (with their mother's help) established a lemonade stand where they sold lemonade to the thirsty golfers as they came off one green and on to the tee-off for the next hole. When they discovered that "the contraption" near their lemonade stand was a golf ball washer, they enlisted their brothers to go hide out in the woods that ran along side of the fairway and retrieve the "lost" golf balls that were hit into the woods. These "lost" balls were then thoroughly washed in "the contraption" and sold to the next round of golfers to pass their way.

Verona, Essex County, New Jersey, a small town of 20,000 people, with a nice centrally located civic square with a fire department, library and local government offices, was a very nice place for children to grow up!