Ernest Hutton Obituary

Ernest Watson Hutton, 88, a resident of WestminsterCanterbury of the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville, Virginia, died Tuesday, February 13, 2007, of respiratory failure.

Mr. Hutton, formerly of Waynesboro, Virginia, was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, on March 6, 1918. He married Vera Bowling in Bluefield, West Virginia, in 1941. Mrs. Hutton died in 2003.

He is survived by their three sons, Ernest Watson Hutton Jr. and his wife, Anne Moore Hutton of Brooklyn, New York, Frank Jonathan Hutton of New York, New York, and Douglas Bowling Hutton and his wife, Dorcas Kraybill Hutton, of Baltimore, Maryland. He is survived by four grandchildren, Elizabeth Bachrach Hutton Ralph and her husband, Alex Ralph, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Elinor Bachrach Hutton of Seattle, Washington and Matthew Kraybill Hutton and Elihu Kraybill Hutton of Baltimore, Maryland. He also leaves one great-grandson, Maxwell Hutton Ralph; and three step-grandchildren, Philip, Alexander, and Marya Mezzatesta of New York City.

Mr. Hutton graduated from Fairmont High School in 1936, and attended West Virginia University where he studied electrical engineering, earning a BSEE. He joined the General Electric Company in 1940, and served as a captain in the United States Army Air Corps in the Alaskan Aleutians and in Florida during World War II. He rejoined General Electric in Schenectady, New York, in 1945, moving with the Specialty Control Division to Waynesboro, Virginia, in 1954. He was instrumental in GE's choice of both Waynesboro and the eventual plant site. He retired in 1979 as manager of engineering support, After retirement in 1979, he and Mrs. Hutton moved to Westminster-Canterbury in 1994. They traveled extensively throughout their lives.

A descendant of the Watsons, founders of West Virginia's coal industry, and of the Hutton family, 18th century pioneers in western Virginia, Mr. Hutton was the keeper of his family's genealogy and was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. His great uncle was the late United States Senator Clarence W. Watson of Baltimore and Fairmont; his grandfather was Conrad A. Sipe, principal of what is now Fairmont State University. His father, Ernest Hutton, a mechanical and electrical engineer and early employee of General Electric, also maintained the family's homestead farm at Huttonsville, West Virginia, where Mr. Hutton spent his childhood summers.

Mr. Hutton's civic and professional activities included chairing the Waynesboro Planning Commission for a number of years and serving on the board of the Virginia Engineering Foundation at the University of Virginia. In 1971, the General Electric Foundation awarded him the Gerald L. Phillipe Award for outstanding public service. He was a talented photographer and artist, continuing to paint in watercolors until the present. His arts interests led him to the presidency of the Waynesboro Chapter of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Outdoors, he enjoyed golf and fly fishing. He was an avid supporter of Scouting in Waynesboro, where he also served on the vestry of St. John's Episcopal Church and was later a member of the First Presbyterian Church.

A memorial service will be held at Westminster-Canterbury's chapel at 3 p.m. on Saturday, February 17, 2007. Interment at the Old Brick Church Cemetery in Huttonsville, West Virginia, will follow at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to Waynesboro Heritage Museum, Box 517, Waynesboro VA 22980, or the Fellowship Fund, Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, 250 Pantops Mountain Road, Charlottesville, VA 22911.

Friends may sign the guest book at www.hillandwood.com.