Keith Tillotson

This site is for the family and friends of Keith Tillotson. It contains his life story in his own words, based on a series of interviews I conducted with him in the summer and fall of 2001 when he was 84 years old. We covered his life up until the mid 1960's.

My dad had a great memory, and was a colorful storyteller. In transcribing these interviews, I've tried to retain the character and rhythm of his speech. The transcriptions are, for the most part, literal. Most of the editing I did was to arrange things chronologically as he had a tendency to time-shift, particularly in recounting the early years. Sometimes an entire chapter needed to be pieced together from stories scattered across several interviews. Most of the chapters from 1931 to 1935 were constructed in this way, as well as many of the World War II chapters. In the cases where he repeated a story, I would take the best version and occasionally append a missing detail taken from another version.

Researching this project has led me to contact family and friends across the country to track down some elusive details of my dad's life. Keith's half-brother Gayle Tillotson and his wife Virginia, in Washington, shared some fond memories and identified early photos of the Tillotson family. And Mrs. Lila Burr, in Snowflake Arizona, provided some great photos of my parents during their first years together when they were best friends with Lila and her husband Junior, as well as information and photos from the early 1940s.

The first release of the site in February of 2003 took us up to 1936, when Keith joined the Navy. The second release in February 2004 covered his Navy career through his discharge one month before Pearl Harbor, and continued with his World War II service in the Merchant Marine.

This third release introduces a new section on the history of the Trupo family, written by Mary Ann Tillotson's sister Rose Sanfilippo. Rose has written detailed stories of the Trupo family's settling in New Jersey after immigrating from south Italy in the early 1920s, as well as a vivid portrait of my parents' meeting and marriage.

To navigate the site, use the menu in the top navigation bar. The menu is arranged chronologically, and every page has a link at the bottom to the next page in sequence.

To start reading the nine new chapters on the Trupo family, click here. Or, to start at the beginning of Keith's story, click here. Also, if you haven't already heard it, there's an audio file of Keith telling one of the great stories from his childhood here.

Neal Tillotson
November, 2004