BALTIMORE — Ezra Edward Hill Sr., a war veteran, revered Little League manager and beloved shop owner who met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali at his Baltimore shoe store, died Oct. 4. The supercentenarian was 111.
Born Dec. 19, 1910, in East Baltimore, Hill was the oldest living World War II veteran in the United States, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs told his family, his children said. A VA spokesperson said the department could not confirm that because its historian is out of the office.
Hill was the oldest living man in the United States for whom adequate authentication of age is available, said Robert D. Young, director of the Gerontology Research Group Supercentenarian Research and Database Division, a widely cited nonprofit organization that verifies and tracks the world’s supercentenarians. He also was the world’s oldest known living veteran of World War II, Young said.
Hill died in hospice at the Loch Raven VA Medical Center in Baltimore. His family said it did not know the cause of death. He was surrounded by his children in the hours before his death and visited by his pastor, the Rev. Gregory Maddox.
“He was always in good spirits, always strong and positive to the very end,” said Ezra Hill Jr., his son.
Hill became the oldest living man and oldest WWII veteran in the country on Jan. 5, when a 112-year-old veteran named Lawrence Brooks, of Lousiana, died. Roughly 1% of the 16 million men and women who served in WWII are still alive, about 167,000 veterans, according to the VA. There are 2,876 WII veterans living in Maryland.
Hill also is the last known American man born in 1910. The oldest living American is Bessie Henricks, of Iowa, who is 114 years old.
He was likely one of the 10 oldest men in the world, Young said. The current oldest man is Juan Vicente Perez, 113, of Venezuela.
The United States does not have a central registry that tracks the entire population, so records of oldest residents are at best qualified as “thought to be,” and there is no way to be absolutely certain, Young said.
“For 90% of people, 110 plus (age) are females, so for a man to get to that age is impressive,” Young said.
When Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan asked Hill in 2020 what the secret to his longevity was, Hill, then 109 years old, said: “Don’t hate nobody. It’s cool, keep calm.”
Hill was born to Alice Reid Hill, a homemaker, and James Hezekiah Hill, a boarding housekeeper. Hill moved to North Carolina and returned to Baltimore at age 12. After a divorce, his mother was remarried to Simon Williamson, a pastor at Faith Baptist Church in East Baltimore, where Hill became a lifelong member.
He graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1931 and attended what was then Morgan College. He borrowed $50 from his mother to open his own business in 1937: a shoe store on North Gay Street, which became Old Town Mall. With Avalon Shoe Store, Hill became the second Black shoe shop owner in the city, his children said.
The U.S. Army drafted 32-year-old Hill in 1943, and he became a sergeant and rifle marksman in a segregated unit of engineers. He sailed to England, and on D-Day plus 3 — or the third day after the main landing at Normandy — he found himself wading through the waters of the English Channel to land in France.
“I saw the greatest military invasion in the world,” he said in an interview in 2019. “No one could form an invasion like this but the Americans. If you saw it, you could never forget it.”
He also guarded German prisoners of war — and slipped them his candies and cigarette rations. The prisoners made up a name for him: “Le Petit Sergeant.” While he was in the war zone, he had a brush with death when a 6-ton military truck mistakenly ran over him. He not only survived, but didn’t even break any bones.
After the war, Hill returned to Baltimore and married Doris Cooper, who worked at the store, in February 1948. They had three children: Doris, Constance and Ezra Hill Jr. His daughter Doris Hill died in 1997. The family moved in the 1950s to Forest Park in West Baltimore, where Hill lived until he turned 99 in 2010.
Hill was also a talented baseball player. He played center field for competitive leagues that held games at Druid Hill and Clifton parks in the 1930s.
“He told me he made a play one time, I guess it was over the shoulder like a Willie Mays-type center-field catch. And there were some professional scouts. He said the scout looked at him, shook his head and said: ‘If you were only a white boy,’” Ezra Hill Jr. said with a chuckle.
As a father, Hill became a coach and then a manager for the Forest Park Little League baseball team, which Ezra Jr. and his cousins played for from ages 8 to 14.
“He was awesome,” Ezra Jr. said. “Forest Park Little League was a real cultural, good experience for boys. When their fathers came and helped out, and we learned how to play baseball, we learned about teamwork,” Ezra Hill Jr. said.
Neighbors, fathers, and cousins also would attend practice to help coach.
“These were some serious Black men that made time to teach us sportsmanship,” Ezra Jr. said. “It was a wonderful blessing.”
The Hills established a good relationship with the Nation of Islam, whose members brought Malcolm X to the Avalon Shoe Store when he was visiting to speak at then-Morgan State College in the 1960s. Malcolm X told the Hills to “forget the classes and concentrate on the masses,” Hill’s former wife Doris Hill said Thursday.
“We didn’t know what that meant. Then we realized we had customers with minimum wages,” she said.
The Hills then changed their merchandise to offer more affordable prices and opened credit accounts so customers didn’t have to only pay cash. Hill also met the Rev. King and Ali when they came to town.
Hill closed his shoe store in 1991 but managed his commercial and residential real estate properties in retirement. He and Doris Hill divorced in 1989 but remained close friends.
“He was a beautiful person. He was the most generous person I know,” Doris Hill said.
After living in Baltimore for 99 years, Hill moved in with his children in Baltimore County. The Baltimore County Department of Aging awarded him with a citation to mark his 110 birthday last year.
Laura Riley, the department’s director, said its staff is “deeply saddened” by his death.
“It was evident he had a strong zest for our country, family and life,” Ms. Riley said. “I am sure he has left a strong legacy of these values with his family and many in the community.”
In addition to his former wife and two of their children, Hill is survived by four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, two brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, and many nieces and nephews.
In addition to his daughter, he was preceded in death by four siblings: James Hezekiah Hill Jr., Earl Hill, Edith Hord and Willie Pearl “Jack” Williamson.
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(Baltimore Sun reporters Ngan Ho and Jacques Kelly contributed to this article.)
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