ROCKLAND — On May 1, 2023, Barbara Hill, 76, left us peacefully at The Sussman House in Rockport, after a long, brave battle with cancer.

Barbara loved children. In addition to raising three daughters and a stepson, as well as actively participating in the lives of her grandchildren and great granddaughter, she dedicated her career to the education and well-being of children. She was kind, caring, and had an unmatched, sassy sense of humor that will be sorely missed.

Barbara was born in Rockland on October 9, 1946, to the late Horatio “Zeke” and Margaret Gray Torfason. As a child, she attended Rockland schools and graduated from Rockland District High School in 1964. She went on
to attend and graduate from Gorham State Teachers College in Gorham, Maine in 1968. After college, she became the first non-Catholic teacher at a Catholic school in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Then, after spending some time raising her family in Massachusetts, she moved back to live in Rockland where she taught at Head Start in neighboring Union and finished her career as a case manager at Sweetser in Rockland.

Barbara was also a devoted member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was baptized through the Middleborough, Massachusetts congregation in 1975 and had been an active member of the Rockland congregation since 1977 where she met and married her late husband, Dennis Hill, and formed many dear friends.

She is survived by her daughters, Jennifer Struk, Karen Emerson and her husband Jacob, Deby Hill and her husband Ryan Duplisea; her stepson, Darren Hill and his son Dylan; her sister, Lucy Harden and her husband Richard; her grandchildren Miranda Struk-Miller and her fiancé Jason Benner, Tyler Emerson, Nathan Emerson, Jonah Miller, Skye Rodriguez, and Molly Emerson; her great-granddaughter, Natalie Thorbjornson; her cousin Douglas Holgerson; and several other relatives including some in Iceland.

Funeral services will be held Friday, May 12, 2023, at 11 a.m., at Burpee, Carpenter, & Hutchins Funeral Home, 110 Limerock Street, Rockland. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Meals on Wheels Rockland. And if you are attending the services, please come ready to share your favorite story or memory of Barbara so we can collect and record them for a family keepsake.

Memories may also be shared on her online Book of Memories at www.bchfh.com.