Lewis Tooker Hutton II

Lewis Tooker Hutton II (b. December 29, 1904; d. May 10th, 1953) as remembered by his daughter Joan Tooker Hutton [Landis] and his son Lewis T. Hutton III

 Lewis Tooker Hutton II (from Mag) 1929?

 

Jessie Eunice Stewart [Hutton] with Lewis T. II

 Lewis Tooker Hutton II with Mikey, his beloved Irish setter. (Kit Foster on January 5, 2010)

Jesse Eunice Stewart [Hutton] b. 6 August 1869: Lewis Hutton II (left) and Andy

My grandparents on the paternal side were Jessie Eunice Stewart and Lewis Tooker Hutton. I never knew either of them. Jessie was the daughter of Lachlan Stewart (born in 1853 in Greenock, Scotland and died on June 22 in Newburgh, N.Y.) Jessie was born on August 6, 1869, in Newburgh and died on April 12, 1927 in Morristown, N.J. Her application for membership in the DAR is folded up in the Lyon Memorial (which I am leaving to Joshua, our historian.) Jessie married Lewis Tooker Hutton who was born on January 25 in New York City and died on October 20, 1914 in Morristown. They had two sons, Andrew and Lewis Tooker. We do not have any pictures of Jesse's husband Lewis.

I heard that Jessie died of a carbuncle on her neck. I also heard from a second cousin, Mary Stewart Hafer, that the Huttons were related to the wealthy branch of that family in NYC. Mr. Hutton never worked and was left three different inheritances of $60,000 each but ran through them with ease. He was also very kind and liked by the Stewarts. (I’ll quote from a few letters about the Huttons when I can see better.)

I remember Uncle Andy quite vividly. I always thought him very pretentious. He wore a black homburg hat and ascots and used such phrases as “As my memory serves me." His wife was Ruth. They had one daughter also named Ruth who committed suicide at age 16. I don’t know if she was from a former marriage of Ruth’s or not. I never met her. There is a sweet, sad letter from Andy in the Lyons Memorial written to my mother when my father died. He mentions “little Lewis” in it, the only time I find the half-brother reified in print! [Joan made contact with her half-brother Lewis Tooker Hutton III for the first time at New Year's 2010 only a week after this post was written. (Josh L.)] Andy called me in NYC before I went to Paris in l953 and said he was leaving me the other half of the Hutton china. That is the set with the flowers painted on each dish by Joan Tooker Hutton for whom I am named. I don’t know what happened to it, perhaps he sold it.

My father, Lewis Tooker Hutton II was born on December 29, 1904. I know he went to Morristown schools as he had Ms. Tindall in the fifth grade as I did years later. She told me that he was a terrible student and that she often sat him in the corner on a stool with a dunce’s hat on his head. He was obviously severely dyslectic and could hardly read or write. He was sent to Blackstone Military Academy and ran away from it and all other schools. He never graduated from high school. How he met my mother, I do not know. They married in Morristown 19 June 1929. I was born in April of 1930. They went to Niagara Falls and Elizabethtown for their honeymoon. My mother told me that she knew from the first night that her marriage had been a mistake. They lived in a house on Burnham Park. (Picture of Lewis in a big raccoon coat.) Then in an apt. on Washington St., which I vaguely recall. I remember jumping up and down in my crib and blocking the door.

I don’t know what sorts of jobs, if any, he had at at his time. He was very dapper and many thought him handsome, He had dark red wavy hair. We moved to New Paltz, N.Y. when I was about two or three. His rich uncle, Samuel Stewart, tried to help him with employment (see stanza two of “Addresses.”) I don’t know what went wrong but we moved back to Morristown, probably to 99 Franklin St.

Lewis took jobs as a policeman, detective, milkman, car salesman. None lasted very long. He loved to go hunting and adored his dogs, especially Mikey, an Irish setter. He spent whatever it took to care for Mikey when he got sick which was often. He was sometimes part of Sunday night gatherings of the Fosters and would even play charades and games sometimes. When I was in third grade, we moved to 3 Conklin Ave., Morristown’s model house. (The banker who came to see this investment was Edgar B. Landis of the Chemical Bank. He also signed the checks from a trust fund that kept us from starving during the thirties.)

Lewis could be very funny and charming if he wanted to be. He knew many jokes. He was also obnoxious and embarrassing. He once walked into mother's bridge group in his long johns. He went on binges of drinking. I am sure he was seeing other women. He brought one home one day and I remember finding my mother and father and this strange person all sitting on the side lawn as if enjoying tea.

Once, he went to work for the WPA, digging ditches. He would tell us stories of men who brought pork chop sandwiches for lunch and one who would eat even the bones. Lewis had false teeth and when he would sneeze, they sometimes flew across the room. He took lots of laxatives and antacids too. Finally, in l942, he flew off to Reno to try for a divorce. Then, mother and I went to Florida for several months to get one. Lewis joined the Navy at some point and then married a women who worked in a factory in Picatinny.

They had a son named Lewis Tooker, I think. I remember when he called mother to tell her, she called him “you rat!” He said he was going to leave the whole trust fund of $50.000 to me but he never did that so I shared it with the brother I never saw or wanted to meet. After the divorce, I don’t think I saw him again. He did keep in touch with Mother and once visited her in New Haven. He may have married two more times. He moved to Florida. I found an obituary in a letter from Andrew Hutton which says that he was 48 at the time of his death and employed by the Dade county school system. (A janitor?) He was a mason, and so was buried in that ritual.

My father often infuriated me and disappointed me but how I wish I could meet him again and ask so many questions, explain to him the facts of dyslexia and how that shaped his life. It was at the core of his low self-esteem and his identity. How he would have loved to see his grandchildren. I have forgiven him entirely, I think.

Lewis II on the day of his wedding to Mary Riker (Photo sent by Lewis III)

Lewis II at his second marriage to Marie Riker [Hutton]

Lewis T. Hutton III (Joan's half-brother) wrote to Joan on January 2, 2010:

It seems our Great Grandfather Andrew Hutton came from Scotland with our Great Grandmother around 1830. He was, by the way, a Master Carpenter. I have various clippings of the census in those early years. By 1850 our Grandfather, Lewis Tooker Hutton I, was listed. In later files I found our Grandmother, Jesse (Stewart). It is all quite interesting. You [Joan] and I of course did not meet Grandfather Lewis but I was told when he moved to Morristown every thing he touched turned to gold. Addendum: This information on Lewis I seems to be incorrect, Mary Hafer was kind enough to inform Joan in 2008 that the gold came from multiple inheritance’s Lewis I went through. My guess is he had quite a time while it lasted and who is to blame him.

On January 12, 2010 Lew III wrote:

When Dad died Lucy (Lew II's third wife) sent the pictures that I have posted to me. She seemed quite nice. As my sister-in-law said, "Dad did marry nice women." I really don’t think he aged well. He was only 48 when he died and the pictures from Florida do not show the same handsome man we saw him to be when he was in his thirties and early forties. I was amazed to hear from Joan that he had false teeth, but, then again, Clark Gable, the king, had false teeth. When Dad died the story goes that he dove into the ocean when he was hot and sweaty and when he came out had a heart attach. He was also a smoker.