Hilary Decent knew how to grab people with a strong open.
“You might think having a pile of diamonds on your dining room floor would be a dream come true, but for me it was a nightmare.” July 12, 2024, Naperville Sun
“Of all the places to conduct my first interview with a cat, Lazy Dog, the canine-friendly restaurant on Route 59 in Naperville, would not have been my first choice.” May 31, 2024, Naperville Sun
A weekly columnist for the Naperville Sun, Decent was most recently snatched up for that role by the paper’s managing editor, Karen Sorensen.
“I thought, ‘Wow, she’s got experience. She’s working for Naperville Magazine,'” Sorensen said. “I really couldn’t believe my luck. And so I called her and I said, ‘Hey, send me some samples.’ And they were great. And she has written a column every week since then. She has not missed one column.”
A British transplant with a gift for writing
As Sorensen noted, Decent came with a solid writing background, a self-described “freelance journalist living the American dream.”
Born in Wembley, a suburb of London, Decent showed writing talent from an early age.
“She just knew she wanted to write,” said Decent’s daughter, Abi Davis. “She was good at it. She had a passion for it. She won a competition for her writing. And then she just carried that through life.”
She met her husband Ross through mutual friends, and the two would move to Naperville in 2007, which is when she had her first stint with the Sun as a freelance writer.
In 2010 she made a move to Glancer Magazine, and after about two years there, would go on to write for various publications in town, always with that signature wit and uncanny local knowledge.
“I think her most effective columns were those where she was just writing about Naperville and something she had observed and something that she didn’t like, or she really liked, you know – she was the city’s biggest cheerleader,” said Sorensen.
A stint in television with “The Ladies Room”
She’d even try her hand at television – right here at NCTV17. Community producer Dave Sapadin spotted her talents at Congregation Beth Shalom, where Decent had taken charge of a holiday farce.
“We went out for coffee and I said, ‘You know, I can’t help but notice that, you know, you seem to be able to have a line for just about everything,'” Sapadin said, asking her, “Have you ever thought about doing a TV show? We have a local community channel here.”
She hadn’t…but now that it was in her head, a month later, she came up with the plan for “The Ladies Room,” a sounding block for local women.
“I mean, we pulled out all the stops, worked our butts off, and I think we did one a month for 14 months until we were both so exhausted, we were ready to just collapse,” said Sapadin. “But we had a great time doing it, and we have all those memories.”
Putting a piece of herself on the page
Decent made her craft shine through memories, and her talent to incorporate her own into her writing.
She put a piece of herself on the page, letting readers get to know a bit more about both her, and her husband of 43 years, whom she affectionately called “Grumpy.”
“Full disclosure I haven’t driven in England since I started to drive here; it’s too confusing. Grumpy, on the other hand, drives with all the skills of a getaway driver, whichever side of the pond he’s on.” Oct. 6, 2023, Naperville Sun
It endeared her to both her readers and her friends.
“She truly wrote about what she knew. And her outlook and her again, that wit, that quickness that she had in speaking, you know, carried through to her writing,” said Decent’s close friend Wendy Hayum-Gross. “And she was such a gifted writer. And again, because she grasped everything Naperville, everything the United States, writing for the local paper was huge for her, and we always teased her that she was quite the celebrity, and we could walk around town saying ‘Hey, we know Hilary Decent.’”
All in, whether in friendship or service
Hayum-Gross got to know Decent as their husbands worked together, and through a shared faith.
“I fell in love with Hilary when I met her,” Hayum-Gross said. “She had such a joy for life, and she just kind of had this warmth that drew you in.”
It was Hayum-Gross who connected Decent with the Rotary Club of Naperville, which she’d be a part of for 17 years.
“She jumped in with two feet. Hilary doesn’t do anything halfway. So she joined the club, and then she got involved,” said Hayum-Gross. “She started writing our Narrator, which is our newsletter. She volunteered for community service. She was at every event. She was all in.”
That seemed to be a constant thread in her life – she was all in…until she couldn’t be.
“Why I don’t have a column today”
This summer Decent spent weeks suffering from back pain. It forced her to step away from her column, which, with her characteristic bluntness, she noted in her final column on August 30, titled, “What you’re reading will help explain why I don’t have a column today.”
Decent would discover the source of her back pain was an aggressive cancer of the brain and spine. It took her life on October 15, at the age of 67.
Her final Facebook post asked not for thoughts and prayers, but for laughter and light, reflective of her spirit.
“When I think about the happy times, right, I think about, they really lived every day to the fullest. And Hilary brought that joy with her every day,” Hayum-Gross said.
Finding a new home, and a new following
“She just loved Naperville,” said Sorensen. “I mean, if she’s remembered for anything, it will be that, her just embracing of this town.”
“Everyone was just so welcoming. She’d walk into Starbucks and people would just smile and they’d be just happy, and it’s a different life, completely, to England. She always said she wanted to be famous, and that’s definitely what’s happened here,” said Davis.
Decent became an American citizen in 2019, after 12 years of living and traveling through this country she had quickly come to love. She recalled the moment, of course, in a column.
“I’ve sung the National Anthem many times over the years, but this week was the first time I sang it with my hand on my heart like other Americans. I was so tearful I could barely whisper. I knew I was marking the end of a long journey, but a better one was just beginning.” May 3, 2019, Naperville Sun