Johnny D Hill

Johnny Dale Hill passed from this stage of life on February 13, 2024, trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of the whole person at the resurrection, a resurrection pioneered and freely offered by Jesus, who willingly sacrificed himself for all people. Hill’s faith is in the promise that death will be swallowed up in victory and that all the dead in Christ will rise to the resurrection of the just at the last trumpet.

Hill was born an unwanted baby, adopted by loving parents as an only child, adopted by God into the family of all the redeemed, and blessed with a wife and five surviving children of his own. Most of the time, he worked as a mild-mannered dentist, but after 1992, he spent much of his discretionary time doing dental work for needy people in Mexico and Ladakh, North India.

Hill was born August 29, 1950, in Edmond, Oklahoma, and adopted by John Darwin Hill and Gladys Bertha Lee Mills Hill in Merkel, Texas. He graduated from Graham High School in Graham, Texas in 1968 and went on to finish an AA at Cisco Jr. College (1970), a BS at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas (1972), and a Doctor of Dental Science degree from the UT Dental School in Houston, Texas (1975). As a dental practitioner, he worked in Washington, Kansas, and several cities in Texas, including Eastland, Houston, Sherman, Dallas, Odessa, and Corpus Christi.

Hill and his wife Katherine Ann Peterson Hill were married in Altamont, Kansas, on November 1, 1975. They have loved and served together for 48 years.

Hill is preceded in death by his father and mother and by his son James William Samuel Hill, stillborn in 1987. Hill is survived by his wife Katherine, his children Joshua David Hill, Josiah Daniel Hill, Gloria Diane Hill Russell, Rebecca Susann Hill Martineau, and Jonathan Enoch Hill, as well as his ten grandchildren.

John Hill was not a “saint” in the sense of one who could do no wrong. He freely admitted the many wrongs he had done over the years. He was a saint in the biblical sense, though, of one who heeds the call of God to repent of their sins, turn toward God continually, and receive the mercy and grace God offers through the name of Jesus Christ. His life verse was II Corinthians 5:14: “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this: that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”