Marion Hill

1920 - 2015

Marion Hill
Jan. 18, 1920 - Aug. 2, 2015
Resident of Oregon
Marion E. Hill passed away peacefully on August 2, 2015 at age 95 at Hopewell Hospice in Portland Oregon with his family in attendance. Born in Pawnee, Oklahoma, later moved to Washington DC. Marion met the love of his life, Susan, in Washington DC at the Navy Department. He was a wounded Army Air Corps veteran in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. Following his convalescence upon returning to the U.S., Marion completed a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry in 1948 from the University of Oregon with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He subsequently completed his Master's degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Oregon in 1950 on the G.I. bill. Marion performed ground breaking work in developing a propellant plasticizer for Polaris missiles at the Naval Ordinance Labs in Maryland in 1955. In 1960 he began a successful career building the chemistry laboratory at Stanford Research Institute (renamed SRI International) to over 80 PhD, MS and BS chemists in five departments retiring in 1984 when he focused upon pursuing his interest in family history research. He was a resident of Palo Alto for 40 years. Marion's wife of 52 years, Susan Rand Jones of Washington D.C. pre-deceased him in 1997. He is survived by his son Stephen and wife Joanne in Arch Cape Oregon, son Thomas and wife Diana in Sunnyvale California and daughter Diane in Benicia, California; seven grandchildren, and sixteen great grandchildren. Interment services are planned for August 21, 2015, 2pm, at Alta Mesa Cemetery, 695 Arastradero Rd., Palo Alto.