Read Royal Dean Hutchinson's Obituary & Leave Condolences

In memory of

Royal Dean Hutchinson

Takoma Park, MD

October 21, 1945 - March 21, 2019

Oct 21, 1945 - Mar 21, 2019

In lieu of flowers

Please consider a gift to Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation.

Learn more & give
Help keep everyone in the know by sharing this memorial website.

Share

Photo

Royal Hutchinson, a resilient, wry husband, father, grandfather, thinker and life-long learner, died peacefully Thursday in hospice at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD. He was 73.

Royal seemed to constantly reinvent himself with new jobs and hobbies which varied from teaching vegetarian cooking classes to briefly driving a cab. He was an obsessive cross-country bicyclist, leading many American Youth Hostel trips across the USA and Europe. He was a serious woodworker and carpenter, running both WoodenWorks, a custom cabinet company, and CD/MC, a home construction contracting company, with his business partner, Art Findling. He was a lifelong tech enthusiast, buying his first of many, many Apple computers and products in 1983, and was an early adopter of the internet, the ipod, gmail, twitter and podcasts. He was also a known editorial perfectionist who surely would have had suggested changes for this piece.

Royal was born in 1945 in Burbank, California to two WWII Coast Guard veterans, and spent his early years in upstate New York before moving to the Washington, D.C., area. Royal’s 20s were full of guitar playing and folk music -- he attended Woodstock in 1969. After graduating from the University of Maryland, he briefly attended graduate school at Oxford University before leaving school to live in Denmark during the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. Upon returning to America, he settled in Takoma Park, MD where he lived for the rest of his life, raising four children with his devoted wife of 42 years, Jean Engel Hutchinson.

When he was 40, Royal was diagnosed with myotonic muscular dystrophy and despite his illness, continued to forge new paths in life. Raised a Catholic altar boy, he converted to Judaism in his 40s and spent his later years devoting much of his energy and time to the pursuit of Jewish knowledge and community. He served on the Board of Trustees at Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, MD as well as built and ran the synagogue’s website. He was a Cub Scout pack leader, a loyal Orioles fan, and then a loyal Nationals fan. In his 50s, Royal earned a degree in technology at Montgomery College, and took a job contracting for the Social Security Administration at Lockheed Martin where he worked on accessibility and usability for their websites.

He retired in 2012 and spent his remaining years at home, avidly consuming NPR and Turner Classic Movies, studying the Civil War and the Torah, and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack via Alexa.

Royal is survived by his wife Jean, children Eric, Leah, Alex and Emma, son-in-law Adrian Spencer, daughter-in-law Jilian Bream, daughter-in-law-to-be Rachel Skalina, and his grandchildren Nora and Nina Spencer and Zelda Hutchinson.

His family will be sitting Shiva at his home and ask for any and all donations to be made to the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation at www.myotonic.org/donate

Order a beautiful PDF you can print and save or share.

Get the PDF

Get notified when new photos, stories and other important updates are shared.

Please consider a gift to Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation.

$168.00

Raised by 3 people

Learn more & give