*Davie Hill

Davie Hill was born September 15, 1914 in Monticello, Georgia to parents Sarah Clements Roberts and Jimmie Ned Roberts. She was the second of six children. Davie’s mother taught her the first grade at home because it was hard for black children to get an education at that time. They moved to Urbana when Davie was seven years old and she attended the Urbana schools, graduating from Urbana High School. She then graduated from Beauty School in Michigan, where she met and married Samuel H. Hill. They came back to Urbana in 1939, where she continued her education at the University of Illinois and worked as a beautician inside her home. She received an associate's degree from Parkland College at the age of 52.

In 1957 Mrs. Frances Nelson became too ill to oversee the operation of The Frances Nelson Home for Children. Davie Hill became the supervisor and worked in that capacity until 1963. During that time, she cared for a number of abused and neglected children. In 1963, Davie’s husband moved us to Liberia, West Africa, where she stayed for a year. She returned home to work for the new Headstart Program as a Center Supervisor, retiring after 13 years of lovingly educating many children, some of whom continued communication with Davie for years to follow. For many years, Mrs. Hill was a licensed day care provider and foster parent, retiring from that profession at the age of 81.

Mrs. Hill was a member of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church for almost eighty years, and considered herself blessed to have held offices in the Church and its Church School. She was the proud mother of Diane Mitchell, Shirley Roberts and James Hill, grandmother to five grandchildren, great-grandmother to four and had many foster children who called her Mother.

Davie Hill passed away on December 22, 2010.

An * next to the name within bio denotes original charter members of the Champaign County Section of the National Council of Negro Women.