Elaine Marie Hill

Elaine Marie Hill, 92, died On October 30, 2025 from heart failure after a brief stay in hospice care at the Duke Hock Family Pavilion. To her family's great comfort her sense of humor stayed with her to the end.

Elaine was raised in Shorewood, Wisconsin before moving with her family to the Washington, DC area, where she studied speech pathology and psychology at the University of Maryland. Upon graduation, she moved to Los Angeles with her first husband, Nelson Paine. There she raised three children. She lived in Los Angeles until 2024 when she moved to Durham, North Carolina to be closer to family.

As a young adult, Elaine worked as a pre-school teacher and therapist for autistic children. Later she worked in accounting at Sears and Vivitar, before joining the sales team at the Nilson Report, a research newsletter focusing on the global credit card and payment systems industry. This work involved cultivating relationships with customers around the world, which she found rewarding and continued until very recently.

As a young person Elaine loved to dance and was a skilled violinist. She was a livelong animal lover. She and her second husband, David Hill, were very active in the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, where they had met. They served there as ushers for many years and formed many cherished friendships. She and David were avid music lovers, especially of the opera. They also enjoyed sailing and made multiple trips east to sail the Chesapeake Bay and the Bahamas.

She worked hard to raise three children on her own and served as caregiver to her mother, her father, and her late son Robert Paine.

Elaine is survived by her children Elizabeth and Scott Paine; their spouses Mark Heise and Xiaomei Wang; her stepsons Charles, John, and Andrew Hill; and grandchildren Aidan and Kiryn Paine-Heise, and Amelia and Isabel Paine.

The family extends our heartfelt thanks to Elaine’s friends who supported her during her last years in Los Angeles, and the compassionate and skilled staff at Atria Southpoint Walk. We also offer our thanks and gratitude to the cardiology staff at Duke Hospital and the hospice care team at the Hock Family Pavilion who worked tirelessly to heal her and when that was not possible to provide her with a comfortable passing.