Nathaniel Reid, who served royalty at Williamsburg Inn, dies at 93

Service was his business.

For 40 years, Nathaniel H. Reid Jr. worked in the hospitality profession for Colonial Williamsburg. He started working at the Williamsburg Inn as a bellman and rose to be superintendent of service. Among guests he and his bell staff of 12 served at the inn were tourists, presidents and foreign royalty.

Mr. Reid died Saturday at 93 in his hometown of Williamsburg.

Although he did not have a college degree, he helped his children pursue higher education.

"On his meager salary, he educated his three children and never borrowed a quarter," said daughter Natalie Reid Mallory of New Bern, N.C. "Two of us have master's degrees, and one has a Ph.D."

"He was a very, very well-read man. He read profusely; biographies, history. He was self-taught. He could hold his own with anybody," she said.

Mr. Reid did spend one year at Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) in Ettrick on a basketball scholarship but returned to Williamsburg and work.

His first job with Colonial Williamsburg was as a waiter at the Travis House, now the King's Arms Tavern. He then became a bellman at the Williamsburg Inn. In 1947, he was named bell captain; he rose to head bellman and finally superintendent of service.

Mr. Reid was selected as one of four Bellmen of the Year in a 1967 competition sponsored by the American Hotel and Motel Association and Samsonite. Sixty thousand candidates were nominated from all over the world, said daughter Carolynn Reid-Wallace of Washington.

The prize was a trip for Mr. Reid and his wife to Canada, $500 spending money and a set of Samsonite luggage.

"Five hundred dollars, which he spent frugally. When they came back, he said 'Thank you very much, we had a wonderful time,' and returned the rest of the money" to the association, Reid-Wallace said.

In a 1968 interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mr. Reid said, "I owe much of my success to the bellboys who work with me."

"He treated all people equally," Mallory said. "We children would ask him 'Which did you find the most impressive?' He never would come out and talk about that. He liked them all."

In the 1968 interview, Mr. Reid acknowledged that Queen Elizabeth II of England was one of his favorite guests.

"She was so grateful for any little thing you did for her," he said. "She was a gracious person."

He retired from the Williamsburg Inn in 1986.

Mr. Reid had been a trustee of the Williamsburg Housing Authority and the Williamsburg Social Services Board.

A funeral will be held today, Wednesday, at 12:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, where he was a trustee and past president of several men's fellowships. Burial will be in Cedar Grove Cemetery on South Henry Street in Williamsburg.

In addition to his daughters, he is survived by his wife of 70 years, Mary Elizabeth Baker Reid; a son, Nathaniel H. Reid III of Ann Arbor, Mich.; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.