Sylvia Anita Hatton, 97, beauty shop owner known for her elegance
Sylvia Anita Hatton was known for her beauty, grace, and entrepreneurial success. She was a model in New York City and served in the Army Women's Auxiliary Corps in World War II.
And for 30 years, she owned Sylvia Anita's Beauty Salon at Broad and Lombard Streets.
Mrs. Hatton, 97, of West Oak Lane, died Tuesday, Feb. 21 at Abington Hospital-Jefferson Health from influenza and pneumonia, said her niece Dora Kennedy.
"She was like royalty," recalled Kennedy. "She was elegant with everything she did. I remember as a little girl, polishing the silver and being taught that this is the proper way to do things."
Kennedy said her aunt was on the cover of a magazine called Bronze Beauty in the 1940s.
Mrs. Hatton was born in May 1919 in South Philadelphia, the only child of Raymond and Nancy Burton.
She graduated from South Philadelphia High School in 1935 and received an associate's degree from Temple University. She also graduated from Apex Beauty College. She married David Hatton in 1943, a union that continued for 52 years until his death in 1995.
In 1942, Mrs. Hatton volunteered to serve in the Women's Army Corps, where she was a swim instructor for nurses and servicemen who were scheduled to serve overseas. She was assigned to an Army base in Georgia.
She said it was very challenging for her as a black woman who was teaching whites to swim in the South," said Clarena Tolson, executive director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority and a close family friend. There were times when some of the servicemen were inappropriate with her. But Mrs. Hatton had a way to deal with them.
She would help them swim to the deep end of the pool before issuing a warning: "Either you are going to learn these lessons in an appropriate way or you're going to have a problem getting out of the pool," Tolson recalled.
Mrs. Hatton also was an inventor who devised an "signaling garment" for the transportation industry. She received a patent in 1973, Tolson said. The purpose was for a worker to wear the outer garment, which had fluorescent directional arrows on it, and workers would simply move their arms instead of holding a signaling device, for airplanes for example.
"She was a very active and young 97," Tolson said. She said Mrs. Hatton had been out to dinner before she fell ill with the flu shortly before her death.
Tolson said, Mrs. Hatton organized buses for the March on Washington in 1963 and also was a courier in the 1960s for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., carrying letters from him to others in the civil rights movement.
Mrs. Hatton was an 80-year member of Union Baptist Church in South Philadelphia, where her grandfather helped build the church, and her mother sang in the choir with Marian Anderson.
She was also active in politics. At 93, she retired after 35 years as a poll inspector in the 17th Ward of West Oak Lane. She was a job-counseling aide for the Mayor's Commission on Aging in the Rizzo administration. When she was 81, she completed certificate programs at Temple University's Multicultural Training and Research Institute. And at 94, she traveled to Alaska for a whale watching trip.
In addition to her niece, Mrs. Hatton is survived by three other nieces and two nephews.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 11, at Union Baptist Church, 1910 Fitzwater St.