My Life and Times

I was born the eldest of four children to Martin and Eva Hilsheimer in Huntington, WV on St. Patrick's Day, 1944. I was conceived the night my dad learned his brother had been killed in an airplane crash in Australia. In fact, I was conceived on a train ("The train lurched", as Dad used to say).

Having spent the first ten years of my life in Huntington, I was thrilled, yet had some trepidation, upon learning we were moving to the Washington, DC area. Living in the Washington suburbs was a great place to grow up. For as long as I can recall, I have had an interest in American history and what better place to live and grow up? Not only did we make family excursions to the sites and museums, going on school field trips to such places as Mt. Vernon and Fredericksburg were always great adventures for a young boy.

We had lived in Alexandria for two years when Mom and Dad bought their first house in Woodbridge, about 20 miles south of Washington. While it was nice to have our own home, not so much could be said about the school system. Woodbridge was, at the time, still a largely rural area which was starting to develop. After attending Occoquan Elementary School in 7th grade, I then went to Gar-Field High School starting in the 8th grade. It was there that Mom started to have some questions about the adequacy of the school system and the folks started to think of moving back to a more established community.

It should be noted that, at these times, Mom was doing most of the parenting, as Dad spent his weeks working with the railroad industry in Chicago. He was only supposed to be in Chicago for a few weeks, but it turned into seven years. He got home on the weekends and was a full time dad when he was there. It was then that we had most of our family outings. One time which particularly stands out was when I was about 11 or 12 years old. We were at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, feeding pigeons when one of them landed on Mom's head and proceeded to poop on it. She wasn't at all pleased, but the rest of us got a big laugh out of her predicament.

We then moved to a newly-purchased house in Arlington, VA where I attended Williamsburg Jr High for the 9th grade and then on to Yorktown High School where I graduated in 1963. Although I did not realize the depth of my interest in history at the time, one of my favorite teachers was David Turner, my American History teacher in 11th grade. He paid me one of the highest compliments I have ever received. I was just plodding along, going through the motions, when we all had to do a term paper at the end of the school year. Not knowing what to do it on, for some reason, I chose the topic: "The Sharecropper During the Depression". We were having a year end review prior to the final exam when Mr. Turner told the rest of the class that he had read one of the finest examples of a term paper he had ever seen. While all were wondering to whom he was referring, he looked in my direction and said, "Mr. Hilsheimer, over there." To say the least, I was a bit overwhelmed and that comment changed my life.

Feeling that I wanted to be a Methodist minister, I had an epiphany and decided that I wanted to be a teacher and major in history when I got to college. While I never became a teacher, I did follow my leading and majored in history at North Carolina Wesleyan College. In fact, my interest in the social study of history bled over into political science and I came within only Senior Seminar short of having a double major in history and poli sci.

It was after my junior year at Wesleyan that Uncle Sam came after me in the form of a notice for my draft physical. We were living in the Chicago area at this time and, given the fact that the draft board in Arlington was looking in my direction and I did not have the GPA to be able to avoid the draft, I decided to enlist in the Air Force. I was first stationed at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, FL, then on to Saigon, South Vietnam and finally ended up at Charleston Air Force Base in Soth Carolina. Picking up a semster's worth of college work while in the Air Force, I returned to Wesleyan for the Fall, 1970 semester to finish my degree.

I should note that, while on leave between Patrick AFB and Vietnam, I married Pam Wherley, whom I had met at a summer job the previous year while working at Encyclopaedia Britannica Films in Chicago. We got married over her lunch hour by a judge in Chicago on June 15, 1967 and have been happily married ever since.

After my discharge in 1970, we moved to Wisconsin Rapids, WI where Pam lived with her folks while I finished my degree at Wesleyan. It was there that I started my career in insurance claims by working for a small independent insurance adjuster. I learned all about insurance from a grizzled old veteran, Marv Arndt and worked for him for the next 6 years, at which time I went to work for General Casualty Co as a Field Claim Representative.

It was during this period that Pam and I adopted our son, David, who was just over two years old at the time. David, who is mostly of Chippewa descent, was the pride of our existance and is still someone whom I consider (other than Pam) my best friend. We still talk (mostly sports) on a regular basis and enjoy each others' company.

Moving on to the Madison, WI area in 1980 with a promotion to Claims Examiner, Pam, David and I spent the next 26 years there. Even though I lost my job at General Casualty in late 1996, I was able, with the support of my family, to weather that storm and land on my feet, first of all as a Certified Nursing Assistant, and then later on as a Subrogation Specialist at Physicians Plus Insurance Corp. That job was outsourced at the end of 2000 and, so, I found myself on the outside looking in, once again. It was then that I landed a job as a Claims Call Center Rep at American Family Insurance Co., a job from which I retired in July, 2006.

I am presently residing in Bradenton, FL with Pam in the house she and her sister, Beth Kashner, inherited from their folks with Marian Wherley's passing on July 1, 2007.

Besides our son, David, our interests lie with his children, Matthew Farr, Lynnea Colbert and Evan Colbert. While we do not have the relationship with Lynnea and Evan which we have with Matthew, we do consider them a large part of our lives and feel truly blessed to have them as part of our family.