A pilot, friend and father

Victor Nitlow, a longtime Island Park resident and a pilot for Pan American World Airways, died in his home in Naples, Fla., on Dec. 12. He was 91.

Nitlow was born Victor Nittolo in Brooklyn in 1920. His father, who worked for the Island Park Corporation and helped build the community in the 1920s and ’30s, always told Victor that his last name was Nitlow because of the anti-Italian sentiments of the time. He did not realize that the name was actually Nittolo until he joined the Navy and heard his name read from official documents.

When he was about 3, Nitlow’s family moved from Brooklyn to Island Park, where he grew up. As a teenager, he spent most of his summer days at the Island Park Beach, where he was a lifeguard. The main reason he did that, though, was so he could spend time with his future wife, Dorothy Hendrix, whom he had met in school.

After graduating from high school, Nitlow decided to follow his father’s example and joined the Island Park Fire Department. His father was the second chief the department ever had, and he held the position from 1925 to 1929. From 1931 to 1951 he was the fire commissioner. Victor himself put in 20 years with the IPFD.

A few months after graduating from high school, Nitlow left Island Park to attend college in West Virginia on a football scholarship. While in college, he joined the Navy, and served as a pilot in the Pacific theater in World War II.

After the war, Nitlow went to Florida and earned his teaching degree at the University of Miami. He taught elementary school and phys. ed. briefly at Long Beach High School.

But teaching wasn’t his true calling, so he eventually followed his passion, flying. He became a pilot with Pan Am in Florida. Soon the company decided to move him to New York, and Nitlow was once again living in Island Park.

“He was very lucky and blessed with a tremendous wife, my mom,” said his oldest son, Victor Nittolo. (His family uses his given name, although Nitlow always preferred the name he grew up with.) “And she kept life stable so he could do what he wanted, and that was to be a captain with Pan Am. If he didn’t have a strong wife, he wouldn’t have been able to do it.”