Joy Hill

Middleton - Joy Cole Hill of Middleton, WI and Bon Aqua, TN, passed away peacefully on November 21, 2012. Born November 27, 1920 in Boston, Massachusetts, Joy grew up in the Syracuse, NY vicinity and was a graduate of Syracuse University with a degree in Communications. Her early career in radio led her to Watertown, NY and Washington, DC, where she met the man she would marry, Lewis Kimball Hill. Together they moved to California where her husband continued his career in radio and she had three children. Widowed in 1957, she relocated to Florida with her children and re-launched her career in radio. When her children were grown, she began her second career as a newspaper picture librarian, working first at the Gannett flagship paper in Rochester, NY, and eventually helping launch USA Today as their first picture librarian. After retiring in 1986, she established dual residences in Wisconsin and Tennessee to spend time with her son and daughter and her grandchildren.
Anyone who knew Joy could not help but be inspired by her loving kindness and struck by her lively curiosity, which only grew as she matured. After retiring she took up painting for the first time and developed considerable skill as a watercolorist. She also joined a writing group and produced evocative and highly entertaining vignettes of events in her life. She was a voracious reader, with wide-ranging interests and an unending desire to learn something new. She loved her family, her church, her friends, sailing, cloud formations in the Wisconsin sky, baking cookies, debating philosophical concepts, crossword puzzles, gardens full of zinnias, and a multitude more of God's gifts.
Joy is survived by her son, Christopher Cole Hill, of Madison; daughter Martha Hill DeHart, of Bon Aqua, TN; and daughter Sarah Joy Kimball, of Canberra, ACT, Australia. She was the beloved grandmother of five and great grandmother of two.
A private family ceremony will be held at Joy's request following her cremation. A memorial service will be held Friday March 22, 2013, at 4:30 pm with a visitation starting at 3:30 pm. All who knew and loved Joy will be welcome.