Chuckatuck High grad dies at 101
Published 10:22 pm Monday, November 25, 2013
Until her death on Nov. 13 at age 101, Ida May Tebo Hill was reportedly the oldest living graduate of Chuckatuck High School.
But she wasn’t even supposed to attend the school, and didn’t until her senior year, unofficial Chuckatuck historian Lynn Rose said.
Rose said Hill told her at a class reunion a few years ago that her family lived in downtown Suffolk, and she went to school there for most of her education.
“But between her junior and senior year, she met this young fellow from Chuckatuck,” Rose said.
Hill’s family owned the farm where Brady’s Marina is now located and spent their summers there. However, “She begged her father enough that he consented to live out there so she could go to school in Chuckatuck,” Rose said.
Hill’s granddaughter, Linda Cox, remembered that her grandmother graduated in the same class as the man who would later be governor, Mills Godwin Jr.
“She would talk about how she went to school with Gov. Godwin,” Cox said.
Hill married Phillip Hill, and they both worked for the highway department, Cox said.
“After he passed away, she decided she wanted something to do, so she went into home care nursing,” Cox said. “She did home care up until she was in her 80s. She’s taken care of people all her life.”
Cox said her grandmother helped raise 10 children, including her own and those of two siblings, one of whom died in childbirth and another whose wife died of cancer.
“She never, never failed to help family, or anybody, really,” Cox said. “The biggest thing when I think of her is how much she gave to everybody. She could be stubborn, but I guess you don’t live to 101 without being a little stubborn. She was a most remarkable woman.”
Hill left behind two grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, as well as a nephew.