Frances Newman HILTON

1938 - 2015

HILTON, Frances Newman
Frances Newman Hilton died at the age of 76 on June 4, 2015, at her home in Malibu, California, of complications from COPD, with her son and daughter-in-law at her side.

Fran was born December 8, 1938, in Fort Worth, Texas, to Nell and Charley Newman, and grew up primarily in Fort Worth, except for a 3 year period in Amarillo while her father opened the Holsum Bread Company there. During the summers, she loved visiting her maternal grandparents in Tyler, Texas, and later attending Sky Ranch Summer Camp in Colorado.

The thing that Fran was most proud of was her intelligence, and rightly so. Always an excellent student, she attended Sweet Briar College in Virginia and participated in their Junior Year Abroad program in France. Fran also fondly remembered her many years of ballet study.

Returning from France, she married Larry Hilton and moved to Albany, California, to do the proverbial "put your husband through law school" thing. After moving around in California, Fran and Larry settled in Santa Barbara, California, with their son Brooks and along the way had two more sons - Eric and Geoffrey. During those years, Fran became a disciple of Julia Child and was quite a gourmet cook. Thanksgiving feasts at her house gave the family something to be truly thankful for! She created what she called "THE Birthday Cake" - a 3-layer German Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream filling and bitter chocolate icing that she produced for special occasions.

Although Fran's studies had been in liberal arts, she became an accountant (sans degree), and truly loved her line of work. Not surprisingly, she was very good at it. After she and her husband divorced, she developed a hobby of buying homes to fix up for herself. Her first was a wonderful ex-carriage house in the museum district of Santa Barbara, and she loved entertaining there. Actually, there would often be one of her friends who was temporarily in need staying there with her, because Fran was generous to a fault and unfailingly loyal to her friends.

After Fran's father died in 1993, her mother decided to move back to Texas and Fran moved to help take care of her. She worked for many years for Landry's, Inc., in Houston, Austin and even on assignment in Memphis. While based in Austin, she again found a house to fix up - doing much of the refinishing work herself. She later moved to a position with Pioneer Property Management Company and continued to work for them long-distance until a few months before her death.

Eventually, after her mother died in 2004, Fran moved to Malibu, California, to be near her son Brooks and his family. In her home overlooking the ocean she finally perfected her perfect nest and reveled in it.

Some of Fran's passions, besides houses and work, were reading, talking and crossword puzzles; and she was very good at all of them! If anyone needed something to read, Fran could recommend just the right book. She retained her sharp mind and wit until the night she died.

Perhaps most importantly, Fran had a clear sense of how she wanted to live her life and was able to follow her desired path until the very end.

Preceded in death by her ex-husband Larry Hilton and her son Geoffrey Hilton, she is survived by a large group: son Brooks Hilton, his wife Sherri, granddaughters Heather and Hollyn; son Eric Hilton, his wife Naomi, grandson Takaya; sister Kay Adrian, her husband Michael; brother Charles Newman, his wife Jan. There are also six nephews, two first cousins; six grand-nephews and three grand-nieces.

Frances was buried in a private family service on Jun 20, 1915, in Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth.

Private family services will be held.