Tony was my Father’s Father,

and his full name was Reid Anthony Hille, on September 27th, 1936, he was born in Freeport, Illinois, and after suffering from Parkinson’s disease for longer than my entire life, on September 17th, 2014 he passed away in a nursing home in Phoenix, Arizona.

It is the a select portion of these years between that this film is inspired by. Though the film spans only a few days, these days provide a representation of the life which he appeared - to one of his grandchildren - to have lived. Any inaccuracy (of which there are many) in regards to representing Tony’s life - and by consequence; many of my family member’s lives - in this film, is something that I consider to be part of a continued family history. My choice to involve elements of what I see as my father’s as well as my own real-life character in the construction of Tony’s fictionalized character for this film, is something I intend to inform the viewer more on the general attitude of the men in my family. To create a flawed character based on a conglomeration of many people who I love - glued together with fragmented pieces of a man who I only truly knew when his mental faculties were diminishing - was a process that forever changed how I understand my place within my family.

Understanding my place in my family consequentially brought me immense restraint and humility when it came to depicting any elements of individuals depicted which I perceived to reflect reality. This restraint only strengthened as I encountered an increasing number of subjects who declined to share their stories

In 2014, in the Immediate aftermath of Losing Him,

I was in high school and happened to be taking an expository writing class, I titled my final paper “A Lifelong Learner” and wrote the following:

“One person can only be so much. He was ordinary in that he married, had kids, committed to a vocation he loved and always gave his loved ones adoration and a home. He was good at these things. He provided and taught, and in turn taught how to provide. His legacy is one of memories both warm and cold. He was a hard worker, a craftsman, a father, an artist, and someone with ambition, and above all else, a life-long learner. He believed to every extent that he could be anything he wanted to be, and that he can and would tell you the same. I wish I could tell you everything, but this paper is supposed to be three pages, double spaced, times new roman, and truthfully, I don’t know everything.”

Those gaps in knowledge became evident as I continued to write.

I went on:

“That being said, I will share what I do know. Reid Anthony Hille was a creator, in every sense of the word. He began his life as a creator and inventor, as a young boy he would stay in his room aiming to build machines and items out of whatever material he could find. Later in his life, but as early as he could, he began creating a family.”

From here on I stuck to painting him as a creator, despite my title for the paper/obituary.

I continued:

“He created homes. To my understanding, Tony and his four children, Becca, Tim (my father), Sean and Jessica traveled the United States in a customized 1959 GMC 40 passenger school bus.  In 1973, the bus was purchased and driven to a plot of land in New Hampshire alongside plans to open up an alternative schoolhouse.  Over the next few months, Tony began teaching his kids about the structural concepts of Buckminster Fuller: an architectural concept artist more widely recognized today as the creator of the geodesic dome. In another chapter of their lives, in 1978, Tony and his kids reached Tucson, Arizona, now without their mother Kate, and accompanied by another woman whom they had all grown to love, and who still lives with my aunt Becca to this day. Tony showed them how to make something out of anything.  One structure they had there had walls made entirely of doors, meanwhile my father’s bedroom while they all lived at the grounds of Splinter Brothers’ Warehouse was made of planks and a large spool which had once held industrial strength steel cable - the kind used for bridge building.  No matter where Tony took them, they were encouraged to make what they what they needed first and what they wanted second, always with the family unit in mind. They called these places homes but agree that the aura of home was always with their father.”

And here, as I struggled to fill gaps, my narrative became non-linear:

“He created a school. It started as a job Tony was offered as a middle school science teacher while living in New Hampshire. A few years later, after he and my family had a lifestyle set up and functioning, he went on to start his own school based out of an old farmhouse.  He called it “Life School”, and it followed principles of unschooling, a teaching method that assumes the truth that children are natural learners. “Some days there would be 3 kids in class other days there could be 20”, my father; Tim (who was also one of Tony’s students), told me. Tony would give his students a card that read, “The bearer of this card is on a traveling leave of absence from regular schooling to learn about the real world through direct experience in work and study”. I carry one of these in my wallet.”

(I still do)

I continued my narrative, conscious that I would soon need to and be able to stop:

“He created ideas.  He shared his beliefs about childhood and education with a man named John Caldwell Holt.  In 1974, sharing some stories from Tony as well as other radical educators, John Holt published a book called Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children.  Tony, Life School and his children were mentioned several times in this book, the opening statement of which went as follows; “I propose...that the rights, privileges, duties of adult citizens be made available to any young person, of whatever age, who wants to make use of them.”  Though John Caldwell Holt wrote the words, they were encouraged, influenced and followed through by Tony Hille.  Tony lived by it, and applied it to his children.

He created a family.  Almost anyone can reproduce, most everyone at least considers doing so, but that doesn’t make a family, that just makes parents, daughters and sons. What made a family for Tony, Jessica, Sean, Bec and Tim were their shared experiences and their collective differences in reasoning and ethics from all others they encountered.  My father tells me that, Tony was ‘very progressive, yet carried down his stereotypes around gender, because he was a single father and he was raised in a male dominated home […] It seemed that because of this and despite Bec being the oldest, Tony bonded more with me.’”

(See image on the right.)

My father continued:

“‘I would always have my own bunk or cabin wherever we went while everyone else stayed in the house with Tony.  And as a male I wanted to break away from him when I became older while I speculate that Bec wanted to be closer to him.’”

And it seems that - as my writing at the time was largely completed in a single ‘train of thought’ draft - at this point in my writing, finally deciding to ask my father for input, I began to fill in some of the gaps.

I wrapped up:

“Though some of Tony’s children wanted to break away and some wanted to stay, when it came to their mother Kate they all agreed in a letter addressed to Tony, that they all wanted to break away from her.  In 1974, after some time apart from her family, she filed a lawsuit to gain custody all four children.  It went over quite predictably, as back then it was rare for courts to find a single father - let alone a single father of four kids - to be a suitable caretaker.  So Kate won custody, but shortly after, in the aforementioned letter, the four kids expressed their desire to run away and reunite with their father.  They were on the road for two years with Tony, until they reached their new house in Tucson.  After that he had walked away from a career, a house and his dreams. It was fine in his mind though; because giving it up meant giving the people he loved what they needed.

A creator can create a school where his ideals are not only the main concept taught, they are eagerly embraced by his students. A creator can build houses that make memories, impart knowledge and continue to inspire today. A creator can share his ideas with the world by any means possible, whether it is through a book he was in, children he taught or by passing it through the people he knows and loves. A creator can create a family, one that will always share a home, no matter how far away they are.

Today, the number of individuals he has affected still feels as if it is growing.  Recently, Sean’s dentist in Tucson said to him, “Sean Hille? […]  You look just like him.”    As I write this, I too hope to both live by his ideals and pass them on to another classroom.

In loving memory of Reid Anthony Hille

September 27, 1936 – September 17, 2014”