Hilary Decent, who wrote for the Naperville Sun as both a reporter and a columnist on and off for more than 15 years, died early Tuesday after a short battle with cancer. She was 67.
Decent’s health struggle started a little more than two months ago, according to her husband, Ross. It began with back pain and headaches, a condition she wrote about in her last column for the Sun published Aug. 30. When difficulties continued to persist, the couple decided it was time to visit a hospital, he said, speaking with the Sun Wednesday.
She was ultimately diagnosed with cancer of the brain and spine. According to her family, Decent suffered from leptomeningeal disease, a rare late-stage metastatic complication of cancer.
Arrangements are being made for Decent to be buried in England, where she’s from and lived before moving in Naperville. Her family is arranging for a funeral service in London next week. When Ross returns from England, he plans to arrange similar memorial and religious services locally so that “friends over here will have the opportunity to walk with us,” he said.
Hilary and Ross had been living in Naperville for the past 17 years. Though to Sun readers, Decent may be known for her engaging and personal Sunday columns, her reach and impact on the city far-outstretched her published work.
She was a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Naperville, an involved member of Congregation Beth Shalom and a staunch supporter of local arts. Apart from the Sun, she freelanced for Naperville magazine and produced a show for NCTV17.
“(She) knew everyone, and everybody knew her,” Ross said.
The couple are from Wembley, a suburb of London known as the home of England’s national soccer stadium. They met at a mutual friend’s birthday party, he said.
Since she was little, Decent loved to write, her daughter Abi Jane Davis said Wednesday.
“She would say that at school she couldn’t do anything — she wasn’t sporty, nothing like that,” Davis said. “The only thing she knew that she could do and was told that she was any good at was writing. … She won a writing competition (when she was young) and from that, she knew that’s all she wanted to do.”
Out of college, Decent pursued a reporting career in England, Ross said. She later went on to work as an English as a second language tutor. That’s the last job she had in England before she and Ross moved to Naperville.
Long before moving to the United States, they had long had it in the back of their minds that they’d one day move overseas, Ross said. When they got married 43 years ago, they honeymooned in Los Angeles.
Decent wrote about the trip — her first to the U.S. — in a column earlier this spring. She wrote about going to IHOP to have her first American breakfast and ordering the most American thing she could think of: a stack of pancakes.
It was Ross’ career working for an American software company, which had a development center in Lisle, that eventually landed the pair in Naperville, he said.
From day one, Decent delved into the community, Ross said. That started with her joining the Rotary Club of Naperville, an organization in which she actively served from her first months in town through this year.
“I will always remember her being very active and involved,” said Alma Jones, the club’s past president and a current board member. She met Decent by volunteering through the club. “She was willing to say yes to just about anything and find a way to lend a very special touch to the things that she worked on,” she said.
Jones said Decent’s absence from the Rotary “won’t be able to be filled by anyone.”
Her legacy will be as positive and lasting on Congregation Beth Shalom, said Vicki Robinson, a longtime member. Theirs was a friendship that grew over time, Robinson said.
They first got to know each other through a weekly bowling group hosted by the congregation, she recalled. Over the years, she and Decent and their husbands would spend a lot of time with one another, from going out to dinner or playing cards to traveling together.
“She wasn’t the loud and showy type,” Robinson said. “You know, some people make their mark because you cannot not notice them. But for Hilary, I think hers was made through her talent and her creativity and being a supportive friend.”
Her quiet sense of creativity, especially, is a through line in Decent’s life that never wavered. When she and Ross moved to Naperville, she decided that she was going to “have the lifestyle that she wanted, and that lifestyle was being a reporter,” Ross said.
It didn’t take long for her to land a writing gig in town. Decent worked as a freelance reporter for the Sun from 2007 to 2011. Meanwhile, she also wrote and produced a cable show that aired on NCTV17 — Naperville’s local nonprofit TV station — in the early 2010s.
The show was called “The Ladies Room.” It focused mainly on things going on in and around Naperville that were of particular interest to women, according to David Sapadin, who co-produced the show with Decent.
In an email Wednesday, Sapadin said Decent was “great to work with.”
“She had a wonderful sense of humor, which emerged quickly in most conversations,” he said. “Sometimes hilarious, sometimes dry, but her humor gears were always turning.”
Decent’s battle with cancer has “been tough and has challenged many to try and visualize Naperville without her in it,” he said. “She made the most of living in Naperville.”
In 2015, Decent began freelancing for Naperville magazine, and by 2017, she returned to the Sun as a columnist.
Through her seven years penning opinion pieces, Decent wrote about anything and everything. She highlighted local personal stories, from a column about front-line families during the COVID-19 pandemic to a piece about a young Naperville actress making her professional stage debut.
Decent’s columns often pulled from her own life too. She’d affectionately refer to Ross as “Grumpy.” She wrote about the joy in watching a musical for the first time after the pandemic. She wrote about the book genres she was reading and her thoughts and feelings about the royal family. She wrote about becoming a U.S. citizen.
“She never missed one column,” said Karen Sorensen, managing editor of the Naperville Sun. “If she was going on vacation, she’d write one or two in advance. She was always worried something would happen to prevent a column from running so she kept one in her back pocket, just in case.”
Beyond that, “what I think everyone will truly miss is just how much she loved Naperville,” Sorensen said. “I think she came here with the idea that she was starting a big adventure, and she embraced every aspect of it.”
Decent’s inclination to dive head first into whatever she did brought her to most recent passion project: rallying to bring a burgeoning arts school in Naperville to life.
For the past two years, Decent sat on the advisory board of the Illinois Conservatory of the Arts, a private performing and visual arts school slated to open in town next year.
She first came across the venture through her role as a Sun columnist. She had plans to write about the school, but she quickly latched onto the idea as more than a journalist — she wanted to help, according to Dylan Ladd, co-founder and executive director of the conservatory.
Hilary Decent included this photo with a 2023 column about overcoming her fear of giving blood, only to faint after she’d achieved her goal. Despite that, she said she’d do it again and stressed the importance of helping others by making regular donations. (Supplied photo)
Shortly after connecting with Decent for the first time, Ladd remembered that she called and asked how she could get involved with the conservatory. Decent became one of the first people to join their advisory board, Ladd said.
“That’s when I learned what a big supporter of the arts she was,” he said.
Alongside writing, Decent had always loved the theater — musical theater in particular, her family said. Asked what were some of her favorite shows, Ross spouted off a few: “The Music Man,” “Chicago,” “Company.”
Early on, Ladd recognized Decent’s love of the arts. And that passion, he said, helped push the conservatory forward.
“I think her enthusiasm for what we were doing has been such a propelling force for why we were able to keep going as an organization,” Ladd said, “and why we are where we are today.”
Decent’s family asks that anyone looking to honor her do so by donating to the Illinois Conservatory of the Arts.
