A dedicated stalwart of the Bermuda Anglican church, Mildred Hill, has been remembered by family as “a humble kindred spirit — gentle, with a pillar of strength”.

Ms Hill, who died on September 23 at the age of 78, was “very loving and caring to all of her children, family and friends”, her daughter Patti told The Royal Gazette.

Ms Hill served as president of the church’s Diocesan Guild’s Council, a position she held from 1976 until 2012, when she was honoured at a special banquet called by the Diocesan Guilds president, Geoffrey Butler-Durrant.

She had been raised in the church by Edwin and Rose Wenham, who brought her up as an only child after the death of her biological mother when she was six months old.

It was a contribution that Ms Hill and her husband Albert, whom she married in 1962, would replicate for Daemon Hanley, her great nephew, who was four and a half months old when his mother died. Mr Hill died in 1989 and in 1994, Mr Hanley’s essay on Ms Hill won her the title of Mother of the Year from the Continental society of Bermuda.

A letter from then Premier Sir John Swan, commending her as typifying the true meaning of parenthood, had a place of pride on the walls of the family’s home in Southampton.

The couple had a second daughter, Terry, and Ms Hill’s strong maternal instincts extended to her niece, Paula Hanley, whom she regarded as a third daughter.

Growing up steeped in the traditions of the Anglican Church, Ms Hill attended the Central School as well as the Girls’ Institute of Arts and Crafts at Alaska Hall.

She received a thorough training in trade skills: dressmaking, upholstery, typing and bookkeeping.

Ms Hill took on additional commercial subjects under the tutelage of Ruth Seaton James, and assumed work at the law practice of Dame Lois Browne-Evans.

After obtaining further qualifications at the Drake Business School in Long Island, she returned to the firm before leaving to raise her family. From their self-built home, This Far by Faith, the Hills ran guest apartments; Mr Hill also worked as a taxi driver and carpenter. He died in an industrial accident.

Ms Hill returned to Dame Lois’s firm, remaining on the staff there until 1988, when she left to care for her father.

She was especially prominent in the church’s Guild of the Good Shepherd, into which she was admitted in 1954.

Ms Hill joined an ad hoc group from various church guilds that decided to form the Diocesan Guilds Council in 1968. It reconvened the following year, with Mr Butler-Durrant as its first president.

Initially elected recording secretary, Ms Hill later took over as president, overseeing the implementation and growth of the organisation’s annual awards tea, along with its guild family picnic, the social evening, and a service of thanksgiving held in Novembers at the Anglican Cathedral. She also came up with a “quiet day”, held in Heydon Gardens.

Maintaining a close relationship with bishops and canons of the Anglican Church, “Sister Mildred” was a keen cook, and took responsibility for organising the feeding of 3,000 people at the Faith Mission of 2009.

In later years, she also organised regular reunions of the Girls’ Institute of Arts and Crafts.

In 2012 she was given the Bishop of Bermuda’s long service award.

Her family recalled her generosity: Ms Hill grew bananas to donate to Meals on Wheels or give away to neighbours.

“Mom will be surely missed for her cooking,” her daughter, Patti, added. “We will miss her loquat pie and loquat cake, her pawpaw casseroles and Christmas pudding, and her delicious ginger snap cookies. Mom loved to give — she had a kindred spirit.”

A service in Ms Hill’s memory was held on September 30 at the Anglican Cathedral.