Dr. Ronald C. Hillegass

Hillegass, Ronald C., MD formerly of Barrington, RI, passed away peacefully on January 27, 2025. Ron leaves behind his sons Ronald "Carl" Hillegass, Jr. of Noank, CT (married to Stella Wingo Hillegass and grandchildren Ronald "Hopper" Carl III, Sarah Margaret "Maggie", and George Chadwick), and Michael George Hillegass of Washington, DC (married to Carrie Babbington Hillegass and grandchildren Hope Elizabeth, Carolyn May "Kiki", and Vela Grace "Ella"), and son Kent's family (Paige Henke Hillegass, granddaughter Carter Anderson and grandson Kent Field, Jr. "Jake"). Ron was preceded in death by his wife of 56 years, Margaret "Peggie" May Hillegass, his son Kent Field Hillegass, and his older sister, Ruth LaRue Dahlberg of Jupiter, FL.
Johnstown. Born April 12, 1938 in Johnstown, PA, to Lester C. and Amelia G. Livingstone Hillegass, Ron was a precocious student from an early age, likely due to the fact that his mother was his teacher at the Benscreek School and his father was the Principal of the Elim School. Both of his parents were graduates of the California State Teachers College, where they met, and Lester earned his Masters in Education from the University of Pittsburgh.
Westmont High School. Ron was talented musically, playing the trombone and singing in the church choir, and excelled athletically, graduating from Westmont High School with 9 Varsity Letters - the most in his class - for football (end and linebacker, Mountain Conference Champions and State Class A semi-finalists senior year), basketball, baseball (catcher, Captain senior year), and tennis, which was a newly offered sport his senior year and for which they needed extra players, an achievement he would laugh about. Ron was also class Valedictorian.
Princeton. HIs high school academics and athletics earned him national scholarships from the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Brown, West Point, and Franklin & Marshall. Ron attended Princeton intending to earn a degree in engineering and a graduate degree in law. He majored in Economics. At Princeton Ron played football all four years, lettering his senior year. He always played behind Ed Kostelnick from Western, PA who was one of the Top 10 high school recruits, written up in Sports Illustrated, and who received 125 scholarship offers. At Princeton Ron also played lacrosse freshman year, Rugby senior year spring (the only season allowed for football players), sang in the Choir and Glee Club, and served as a Chapel Deacon and Orange Key Guide. Socially, Ron joined the Cap & Gown Club, where he lived his final two years, rooming with good friends Frank Shultz, Bruce Sprague, and Bob Bach, Crew Captain. Ron's friendships from Princeton continued throughout his life, and they referred to themselves with no degree of humility as "Legends".
Penn Med School. Ron graduated from Princeton with Honors and went to Penn Med School, declining acceptances to Yale and Columbia, with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist.
Meeting Peggie. The summer after his first year in Med School, Ron and Bruce moved to Cape Cod where he had vacationed in the summer as a child and where classmates told him he could "make tons of money" and have a great time. He worked at Pate's Charcoal Pit in Chatham and did make a lot of money. But, more importantly, he met the love of his life, Peggie May, a "sweet Wells College girl", and romance quickly flourished. The two were "pinned" that Christmas, engaged the following Christmas, and married following Peggie's graduation from Wells in June, 1963.
Psychiatry is out. After graduating Penn, Ron and Peggie's honeymoon was a trip across the country in a VW Beetle for an internship at the Salem State Hospital in Oregon, the setting for Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". After that summer, Ron decided against psychiatry. On the return trip, he and Peggie slept in sleeping bags without tents. This experience whet his appetite and love for travel. Ron's first Senior Service Year was general surgery and he loved it. He applied for a surgical internship at Penn, where he spent the following year. It is a good thing that Ron did not go into psychiatry as it is generally agreed that he most certainly would not have let his patients get a word in. Listening was not his strong suit.
You're in the Army Now. With the Vietnam War expanding, Penn's Dr. Radvin asked Ron to join him at the conclusion of his residency. Ron had already been accepted to the University of Pittsburgh for an orthopedic residency with Dr. Ferguson. Ron was told to think things over and asked what he would like to do. With his travel bug, Ron answered that he had "always wanted to take time off and travel to Europe." Contact was made with the Surgeon General and soon Ron was receiving calls from Generals in Europe asking what he would like to do and where he would like to go. His answer: "The best medical facility in Europe," which is how he and Peggie arrived at 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, after a stay at Fort Sam Hood in San Antonio, TX.
Germany. Although Peggie hated him for saying it, Germany was Ron's favorite time in life. He and Peggie traveled extensively, to Amsterdam, Paris, Munich, and the ski areas of Germany. Peggie quickly learned to speak German and they spent time at Ramstein Airbase, attending operas and concerts at Kaiserslautern and Mannheim, visiting Heidelberg, the Moselle wine area, and seeing Peggie's cousin George May, stationed at Bitburg. Ron and Peggie were invited to join host committees for senior military leaders and spouses, an honor that he credited to Peggie's good looks and kind nature. Ron met his future medical partner, Henry Urbaniak, in Germany; and it was there that his first child, Ronald "Carl" Hillegass, Jr., was born in 1966. Ron would be promoted to Major before his honorable discharge and his young family returned to America aboard the U.S.S. United States, passing the Statue of Liberty.
Pittsburgh. Ron started his orthopaedic residency in Pittsburgh, where the family lived in Section 8 housing at Allendale Circle on the south side of the city. After his second son Kent's birth in 1969, the family moved to Penn Hills, a suburb east of Pittsburgh. Son Michael was born in 1970. Ron considered moving to Knoxville, TN to join a group of six orthopaedists to perform total joints and he interviewed for the Chairman of the Orthopaedic Department at the University of Tennessee. After deliberating, he and Peggie decided to look to New England, where they first met. Brown Medical School was just starting, and in 1973 the family moved to Barrington.
Providence. Ron's professional career excelled in Providence. He was on the staff at Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and Miriam Hospitals. At Rhode Island Hospital, Ron covered orthopaedic clinics, particularly Myelomningocele, Cerebral Palsy, and Hemophilia Clinics. Ron was an Assistant Professor at Brown, and lectured frequently to the Rheumatology and Pediatric Residents. While in practice, Ron served as an orthopaedic consultant for the Rhode Island Reds Hockey Team and the Pawtucket Red Sox Baseball Team. He also served as the Sports Medicine Physician and Surgeon for the Wheaton College Athletic Team. Ron was made Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at Roger Williams and would become Clinical Assistant Professor at Boston University before retiring from practice.
Writing. Ron was a prolific writer, authoring book chapters, published articles in peer reviewed journals and presented speeches at national and local meetings. He conducted research at both Pitt and Penn, where he received The Kappa Delta Award, the highest of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). This research led to the development of tissue grafts to repair defects in articular cartilage. Ron served as President of the Rhode Island Orthopaedic Society, represented Rhode Island on the Board of Councillors of the AAOS, helped found the Orthopaedic Political Action Committee (PAC), and served on the Occupational Health Clinic, where he authored a chapter in their Primer on Occupational Medicine.
The Eastern Orthopaedic Association (EOA). Ron's most fun was his participation in the Eastern Orthopaedic Association, which covered the Eastern part of the U.S. Ron was on the Board for 12 years as a Regional Member, Secretary, President, and Past Presidency Council. In 1995, the year of his Presidency, the EOA's Annual Meeting was held in Rome, Italy. With 430 physicians, 239 spouses, and his family in attendance (including daughter-in-law Stella), Ron played the part of Caesar to a tee, with he and Peggie entering on a horse-drawn chariot, surrounded by fully adorned Praetorian guards, accompanied by sword swallowers and jugglers, and all attendees wearing togas. It was his professional high-water mark.
The Renaissance Revisited. Ron was proud to have his EOA Presidential Address, "the Renaissance Revisited," published as an editorial in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, the main publication of the AAOS. It was the only time they had published an Address other than those of the Presidents of the Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery or the American Orthopaedic Association. The Address compared and contrasted the previous 40 years of orthopaedic surgery with the Renaissance in Italy, something Ron had been thinking about for a long time and which seemed well-suited for the meeting in Italy.
Ron retired from practice shortly thereafter in 1996.
Travel. Ron and Peggie took advantage of his early retirement by traveling extensively, with his climbing to the Base Camp of Mt. Everest and climbing Kilimanjaro being two highlights. Ron was scheduled to climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland but the ascent was cancelled due to weather. Ron and Peggie traveled to Eastern Europe, Patagonia, Russia, China, and India, with repeat visits to London and Paris. Trips to Machu Picchu, hiking the Haute Route in Switzerland, and skiing in Italy. They travelled to Alaska, throughout Scandinavia and took a safari in Africa, one of Peggie's highlights.
Organizations. Ron enjoyed giving his time to various groups and organizations, where he typically rose to leadership positions. After extensive genealogic family research, he was able to secure membership in the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), the Varnum Society, and the Continental Guards. He had hoped to find a connection to the Society of the Cincinnati. Ron also became a Freemason and a Shriner, which fulfilled his mother's wishes as his father had been both. Most recently, Ron served on the Board of the Barrington Senior Center.
Waterville Valley, NH. In 1979, Ron and Peggie bought a house in Waterville Valley, NH. Virtually every weekend in the winter following Thanksgiving through March or April, Peggie would pick Ron up at his office in Moshassuck Square, Providence at 5pm on Friday so he could drive the three hours and awaken early on Saturday to be the first one on the lift. He and Peggie enjoyed hosting parties and appreciated the friendships they developed in Waterville with friends from throughout southeastern New England. After skiing a full day on Sunday, the house would be cleaned and closed before the three hour drive home. Ron would be prepped for surgery by 7am Monday morning. This was his schedule every week for almost 20 years. In addition to alpine skiing, Ron and Peggie enjoyed nordic skiing, snowshoeing, and hiking throughout the White Mountains in the spring, summer, and fall.
Barrington. Ron and Peggie built a beautiful life in Barrington in their home of 50 years. The 70s involved the Jenny's Lane Parade, the neighborhood kids playing flashlight tag and kick-the-can, and Christmas caroling throughout the neighborhood with Ron playing trombone. Ron joined the Rhode Island Country Club in 1975 where he would go on to have his name added to the championship plaques for tennis, squash, and possibly paddle tennis and golf. Ron and Peggie also joined Barrington Yacht Club in 1975 and purchased a 34 foot Cal sailboat they named "Tigress." They enjoyed Tuesday night races, taking two-week family sailing trips to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Block Island. A highlight for Ron was serving as the ship's doctor on Tony Ryan's "Innisfree" in the 1984 Newport-to-Bermuda Race. Ron's mishaps on the Tigress were legendary in the family, with the boat getting stuck under the Newport Bridge, being grounded in front of the Moorings restaurant (from which his sons fled in the dinghy out of embarrassment), and striking Old Bull in the Sakonnet River. Ron took it all in stride with good humor eventually. Funniest of all was when the Sea Tow captain shouted Ron's name in passing. Yes, he was on a first-name basis with Sea Tow. Clark Griswold had nothing on Ron.
Please provide comments and/or share stories of your experiences or remembrances of Ron in the spaces below.
A public viewing will take place on Friday, February 21, from 4-6 pm at the Smith-Mason Funeral Home, 398 Willett Ave, East Providence.
A private, family only funeral will be followed by a Celebration of Life scheduled for this summer, where, per Ron's final instructions (and true to form) "Bad jokes and stories encouraged."