Pamela (Pam) Faye Miller Hilton of Severna Park, MD, passed away peacefully on October 17, 2026. Her family is glad to know that her almost fifty-year experience of chronic pain is over. She was born on April 17, 1942, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Pam’s early years involved a myriad of moves due to her father’s career as a Civil Engineer at DuPont, including a stint in Hanford, WA, where the fuel for the first atomic bomb was produced. The Miller family eventually settled in Richmond, VA, where Pam graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, and she attended her 65th reunion in 2025. She reunited with her friend group, “the Westover Witches.”

During her Senior year beach week in 1961, she met the love of her life on the Virginia Beach boardwalk. There is photo evidence of that day and, surprisingly, her father, Philip, is featured with a stern look and arms crossed, looking at the young lovers on the beach. She was courted for three years by her midshipman love, Frank Hilton, through daily letters from the Naval Academy. They married in June 1963 in Richmond, Virginia, and began their 61 years together, jumping from duty station to duty station around the world. Life as a Navy wife challenged this shy, book-loving woman as she learned the social responsibilities of a Navy pilot’s wife and raised three children, often alone, while Frank was away on deployments. She managed 12+ moves (three overseas in Japan, Iceland, and Italy) and raised a family with faith in God, a love of learning, and a commitment to serving others. She earned two degrees and spent 28 years as a civil servant, retiring in 2009 as a GS 15 Grants Management Specialist for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Pam was a voracious reader and rarely found a fiction book she did not like. She shared memories of the joy that the library held for her as a child, which became the beacon for her early career as she earned a Master of Library Science from the University of Rhode Island (during Frank’s War College duty station in Newport, RI). She served as the head librarian at the Patuxent River, MD Naval Air Station and Keflavik Naval Air Station in Iceland. Later moves required a pivot in her career, and she moved into management analyst positions that proved both challenging and rewarding.

Her most cherished moments were with her family, especially her six bright and talented grandchildren, each of whom developed a special relationship with her. To keep the family connected, Pam and Frank sponsored an annual Hilton beach week hosted up and down the East Coast, from Chatham, MA, to Duck, NC, and, in later years, the Eastern Shore of MD. One year the family went rogue and spent a rustic week in Yachats, OR, at our dear friends, the Newcomers’, ‘Camp One’ on the Pacific Ocean. Weeks at the beach and Christmas held laughter, music, heated games of Hearts, in which Pam usually reigned supreme, “famous” apple walnut cake from the 1970’s Monterey Times, and deepening connections with her favorite people.

Besides books and her family, Pam had a passion for aesthetics including clothing, jewelry, home decor, and the arts in general. She found joy in designing and curating the art and furniture for the many homes she and Frank settled into over the years. She delighted in shopping trips and her very last ‘best day’ this fall included a trip to the stores and lunch out to celebrate her son Greg’s birthday. She nurtured her creative side by taking art and flower-arranging classes when the family lived in Japan in 1968, and after retiring, she enjoyed many watercolor classes and created a gallery of beautiful paintings that adorned the walls of her home and apartment.

It feels appropriate to share one of Pam’s ‘guilty pleasures’ that she adopted in the last 5 years of her life: the habit of drinking only Dr. Pepper as a tribute to one of her favorite long-time friends, David McKee. When David passed away in 2021, Dr. Pepper was one of the few drinks on offer at his memorial service. The backstory is that David was a dedicated Dr. Pepper drinker throughout his life and was disappointed that there was none to be had in Vietnam during the war. Judy, his wife, convinced Dr. Pepper to ship David’s favorite soda to him in Vietnam. Pam picked up the habit at the memorial, and it was nearly impossible to keep her fridge stocked with Dr. Pepper. Her three kids decided that Dr. Pepper had taken the rank of the fourth and favorite child.

Pam’s life was filled with love, family, service, art, learning, reading, and a multitude of adventures, all shaped by her fated love for a career Naval Officer.

Pam was preceded in death by her loving spouse of 61 years, Francis Warren Hilton, Jr. She is survived by her three children, Scott Hilton (Judie) of Groton, MA, Greg Hilton (Kathleen) of Severna Park, MD, and Laura English (Ed) of Falls Church, VA; her six grandchildren, Elizabeth, Sarah, Andrew, Jack, Devin, and Nolan. She is also survived by her four siblings, Phil, Mary, Jim, and Chuck.

A private service and inurnment at the United States Naval Academy will be scheduled at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Hospice of the Chesapeake (hospicechesapeake.org/giving).