Matt Gill
It was a different kind of Fourth of July celebration I enjoyed this year, but one that once again brought back memories too wonderful to ever forget and so much fun to share with others.
I got the opportunity to share some stories about the late, great Matthew J. Gill with two of his sons, daughters—in-law, grandchildren and great-grands, thanks in part to the Middletown Township Historical Society and thanks in part to the family who cherish the patriarch of the Gill clan and want to know as much as possible about him and all the good he did for his hometown and the people in it.
Met up with Matt’s son Brian Gill and Brian’s daughter Jessica Mohr at a Middletown Historical Society meeting several months back and they asked if I would come over one evening to talk about their dad.
When Brian’s brother Kevin and his wife Kathy came for a visit from their Utah home over the Fourth, it seemed the perfect time to get together at the Mohr home. Even better, brother Matt was on the phone from New York. The Gill daughters, Kristine, Laureen, Coleen and Noreen are all spread across America from San Francisco to Rhode Island to Florida, so wasn’t able to meet up with them.
But in the conversation on the Fourth with Kevin, Brian and their clans, it was so nice to remember the fourth generation Gill who opened the Courier office in the farmhouse where he was brought up as a child. His great grandfather had come from Ireland in the potato famine and the Gill farm was on Route 35 near Woodland Drive.
That’s where the Courier was located until eventually we moved into the basement of the new building constructed right next door, the travel agency and real estate office upstairs, the Courier below.
Matt purchased The Courier in 1967 and immediately went about making it bigger, better and more widely read. At the same time, he kept up his lively real estate and travel businesses, but was never too busy to do all the wonderful things he always did for Middletown and all its people.
He headed up fund raising drives for cancer, heart and muscular dystrophy causes, he served on the township’s first narcotics council, its Human Rights Committee, and was at one time Chair of the Democrat party. He was a Navy veteran and a past commander of VFW Posts 2179.
When he died in February 1982 at the age of 61, after a tough bout with cancer, the ‘new’ Middletown town hall annex was nearing completion.
Frank Self was the mayor and he immediately suggested that Matt be remembered in that annex. Paul Linder and everyone else on the township committee agreed, and Linder suggested former banker, township committee, equally generous and thoughtful Republican William Johnson should also be remembered in the Annex.
We who knew both men agreed; Bill had died a few months earlier than Matt, the two were great friends, and what a great idea to see both remembered in the new town facility. Famed local sculptor Donald DeLue was called in to sculpt the two busts, and the Johnson Gill Town Annex came to be.
Even in the naming of the Annex, Matt’s thoughtfulness of his friend was honored. When asked which name should go first, Ticky Smith, the editor who had worked with Matt throughout his Courier ownership said Matt would want his name to come after Bill’s since he respected his old friend too much to be put ahead of him.
The busts now rest in the library and it was thought that would be temporary … only until the new Town Hall is given its final touches and town business will once again be up and running at full speed.
But that isn’t all we talked about at the Mahr home on the Fourth. We all traded stories about Matt’s close friend, Jimmy Jones, and how Matt helped him, move into one of the town’s senior citizen complexes.
We talked about Duffy Fisher and his family, and Duffy’s Fels Naphtha soap he would buy at Food Town to move everything from houses to the former Quay in Sea Bright to new locations.
We talked about the success of all Duffy’s kids, their college degrees and how they too gave back to the township with their achievements and generosity.
We talked about other friends of Matt’s who lived in Gillville, and how Highlands Mayor Bob Wilson also wanted Matt remembered by his borough leaders when Matt died.
The memories brought out to Matt’s next generations just how free of any racism or criticism of others their father always was. Of course he blasted politicians in the Courier pages when they were doing what he felt was wrong; his editorials were known and read county-wide but he made sure his journalists researched all their facts before writing their news stories, and left their comments either to the editorials or the infamous Around the Halls column. (Eve Dropper was far and away the best-read journalists in any newspaper in Monmouth County)
Matt’s kids learned more about the respect everyone had for Matt… Buck Smith talking about how his heart was broken when he learned of Matt’s death; Joe McCarthy describing him as a good friend who made the whole community better because of his kindness and wisdom;
But both Brian and Kevin remembered what the best thing about their dad they had heard and always remembered it came from a bagger at Foodtown. They remembered being told by that young man that sure he knew their dad. What he remembers about him was “he treated everybody the same; he treated me in the exact same way, with the same greeting and the same smile and the same attention, as he treated the Foodtown owner, Joe Azzolina. He was that kind of man.”
Does a bigger compliment that that ever get paid to anyone both Brian and Kevin asked? This is one they will always remember since it speaks volumes about their Dad and the legacy he left them and future generations of the Gill family..
I shared some of my own personal memories of the best publisher I’ve ever worked for, some of the trips I got to take because Matt owned a travel agency and he needed publicity for trips it offered.
I told them about the time the Gill Travel Agency took 144 travelers from St. Mary’s to Ireland, the largest single group that ever visited that country and stayed together to tour it so extensively.
Matt had asked my husband and me to go along “to help.” I shared with them the stories of how we went all the way to the United States Supreme Court because he didn’t like how New Jersey elections were won, and how Bill Wilson took on the job for us at no fee. The Supreme Court declined to hear the matter since it said it was a state right…but the laws was changed by the next election all the same..
We talked about the court battle with the Roselle Stavola firm over sanitation and one of our Courier editorials and how Matt financed it himself because it was the right thing to do. And so much more.
It was a wonderful evening. So, on the way to the 2023 new Town Hall building celebration the day after the Fourth of July chatter at the Mahr home, I stopped in to see the Johnson and Gill sculptures at the library one more time.
But at the ribbon cutting event for the new Town Hall, Mayor Tony Perry told me the sculptures of Messrs. Johnson and Gill have found a permanent home in the Library. While they are not coming back to the building that replaces the Johnson Gill Building, he said, they are the heart of what is planned to be a major library project that will identify and research the history and stories of each of the monuments in Middletown.
It’s disappointing the sculptures of these two giants who led Middletown through difficult and happy times, keeping the people informed and keeping their funds secure will not be back overseeing the way the town is run and who’s running it. But in my mind and the minds of those who remember their vast contributions in so many ways to their home town, that they will forever be symbols and guardians of township business and government.
