Hilda Chester

Chester died on December 1, 1978. By then, she apparently was no longer in touch with or had no immediate family, and was indigent. She was buried by the Hebrew Free Burial Association in their Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. Unlike many of her antics, her death was not reported in any news media.

However, over time, she slowly faded from the news, although she maintained some of her old ties to the Dodgers. In 1969, Dixie Walker noted that he hadn't been back to Brooklyn "for years" although he added, "but last September I got a birthday card from Hilda Chester. She never misses a one."

When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, Chester lost her team, her outlet to fandom, and her fame, although she continued to be a semi-celebrity for several more years. Upon the razing of Ebbets Field in 1960, she and five members of the Dodger Sym-Phony band appeared on Be Our Guest, a short-lived television program on CBS. (Other guests on that episode were former Dodgers Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine, and former Phil Silvers Show regulars Maurice Gosfield and Harvey Lembeck. She was also honored as "America's No. 1 baseball fan" during ceremonies at the opening of the National Baseball Congress tournament in Wichita, Kansas in 1961.

After the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles following the 1957 season, Chester said she "wouldn't be caught dead" going to see them in Philadelphia, their closest visit to Brooklyn.

The Dodgers named their all-time team in between games of their Old-Timers' Day double-header in 1955. On the occasion, they asked other significant contributors to the team who were in the stands to take bows, including Billy Herman, former star second baseman, Whit Wyatt, former star pitcher, Leon Cadore, who pitched an entire 26 inning game in 1920, Otto Miller, who was on the Dodgers' first two pennant-winning teams of the modern era, Arthur Dede, Gus Getz, Jack Doscher, three of the oldest living Dodgers, and Hilda Chester as the Dodgers' all-time fan. Several weeks later, she was profiled in a newspaper article in The New York Times.

She was an actress, known for Brooklyn, I Love You (1946).

In 1946, Chester was called as a defense witness for Durocher, who was on trial for assault. The previous year, a fan named John Christian had been heckling the Dodgers' players from the Ebbets Field grandstand many times over several weeks. On June 9, 1945, Durocher had enlisted Joseph Moore, a special policeman at the game, to get Christian from his seat, and the three met under the stands. Christian wound up with a broken jaw, and Durocher was accused of using brass knuckles to beat him up. Chester testified that Durocher had come to her aid and was defending her honor because Christian had been calling her names, including "cocksucker," and "usin' langwidge that shocked the ladies." After two days of testimony from several witnesses, including Durocher, who testified in his own defense, the jury deliberated 38 minutes and both Durocher and Moore were acquitted on April 25, 1946.

In 1943, Chester was given a silver bracelet from the Dodgers, with her first name on the band, and a small dangling silver baseball.

Because of her extremely loud voice, thick Brooklynese accent, and allegiance to the Dodgers, Chester was well-known in Ebbets Field and beyond, throughout Brooklyn. But she became famous after her first heart attack. Instructed by her doctor not to yell anymore, she returned to Ebbets Field with a frying pan and iron ladle, and made so much noise that everybody quickly knew who she was. The Dodgers' players soon replaced her noisemaking implements with a brass cowbell as a gift. She also received grandstand passes from the team, but preferred to sit in the bleachers, where she would hang a sign wherever she sat that said, "Hilda Is Here". In 1941, she had a second heart attack, and by then was important enough to be visited in Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn by Dodgers' manager Leo Durocher and several players.

Chester was born on the East Side of Manhattan. She began her long allegiance to the Dodgers as a teenager, when she stood outside the offices of the Brooklyn Chronicle every day to hear the scores of the Dodgers' games as soon as possible. After a while, she was able to get passes to games from sportswriters. At some time, she was hired as a peanut sacker by the Harry M. Stevens corporation, which ran the concession stands at Ebbets Field and most other Major League Baseball stadiums, breaking down 50 pound sacks of peanuts into retail bags for sale. After she was done with her work, she was able to watch the games. She also worked for the Stevens' concessions at Aqueduct and Belmont Racetracks. Eventually, she "graduated" to selling hot dogs. By the 1930s, she was attending Dodgers' games frequently, and in 1938, after Larry MacPhail, the Dodgers' executive vice president, instituted Ladies' Day at Ebbets Field with a ten-cent admission price, she became a regular.

Hilda Chester was born on September 1, 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.