Achiever of notable accomplishments, consummate collector of awards, plaques, merit badges, ribbons and educational degrees, George Hill passed away one month to the day after breaking his femur, with his daughter holding his hand, and his granddaughter bidding him goodbye on the phone.

Among his many vocational and avocational pursuits, his most durable identity was "physician." His lifelong passion for medicine maybe started with his birth, when his mother refused the midwifery services of her mother-in-law and insisted on a hospital for her two children. In this way, he was at the forefront of many shifts in American health care that he sometimes led and always stayed fully informed of.

Endowed with an exceptional memory and voracious appetite for learning, George left smalltown Iowa at age 15 to begin Yale University on a full scholarship. He went on to a scholarship at the Harvard Medical School before embarking on a long career in surgery and oncology, researching and teaching at the National Institute of Health, the Harvard Medical School, the University of Colorado, Washington University in St. Louis, Marshall University and the New Jersey Medical School. Not busy enough with a conventional academic career, he also was a part-time physician in the Navy, where as a reservist he rose to Captain. He authored both a textbook on outpatient surgery and a case study of leprosy, as well as more than 150 research papers. He often collaborated with his wife of 66 years, Dr. Helene Z Hill, (Lanie).

At age 64, feeling the onset of arthritis, George stepped down from surgery and just as quickly jumped into graduate studies in history, his second great passion. His exceptional abilities to read, research, catalogue and document led to a massive tome on Thomas Edison's impact on the environment, the first to view the great inventor as "the great polluter." A pared-down version of his doctorate appeared as 474-page book.

His post-medical career saw him try his hand at hospital administration, which he liked, and leading a small college (Sterling), which he absolutely loved. Ever the scout (an Eagle no less), and always a Marine, he was an enormous advocate of outdoor education and wilderness experiences, passions he put to work by volunteering and leading, including many years on the board of Frost Valley YMCA camp. He had a closet stuffed with uniforms that he wore proudly to display his deep commitment to service. But his favorites, by far, were anything with a USMC emblem.

As his own adventuring slowed with age, he turned his attention to troves of family materials from the world wars, and wrote books on the exploits of his father, father-in-law, and grandfather-in-law. He got particularly animated over the prospect of turning one of these volumes into a movie, a dream that always stayed just out of his reach, but never far from his eager conviction that he could do about anything he put his efforts into.

His fascination with history and military led him deep into the world of lineage societies where he found his tribe and where he, for the last two decades of his life, enjoyed tremendous company and made many dear friends. Between his societies, his vigorous volunteering for the Scouts, and his church, he was never short of things to do, and new people to make friends with.

He was a life-long adventurer, who with his wife Lanie, conquered every 4,000 foot- mountain in the northern Appalachians, a good number of Colorado's 14,000 footers, the Haute Route in Switzerland, as well as most of Mount Kilimanjaro and the trail to the base camp of Everest. Oddly, to family, he and his best friend Guillermo Herrera believed that hiking should be done without reliance on hydration, a custom he called "practicing to be thirsty."

Famous for his pancakes, almost every Sunday of his married life he donned his best Brooks Brothers and whipped up his signature breakfast: thin griddle cakes, blistered with fresh blueberries, swimming in butter and drowned in a lake of real maple syrup.  Everyone who tasted them loved them.

No meal was complete without his lectures and sermons; he was a man who never let a pause in the conversation go to waste.

We will miss his non-stop thinking and talking about his thinking, his tricks and tips for organizing anything, and above all, the love he had for his wife and family.

In addition to his wife, George is survived by three children (James, Sarah and Lana), two daughters'-in-law (Uma Narayan and Megan Reynolds), three granddaughters (Heather Esker, Georgia Hill and Rosie Hill), three great-grandchildren (MJ, Landon and Christian Haught), the beloved family of his brother (Suzanne Epley-Hill, Vicki and Mark Norfleet, Tom Hill and Conor Sheehy), his chosen family of Mária, Miklos and Martón Péti, and many others he counted as loved ones and family, too numerous to name here. He was preceded in death by his son David and his brother Thomas.

A Funeral Service will be held at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Parkway, Baltimore, MD 21218, on Saturday, May 30th, at 11 AM.  Interment private.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in his name to Sinai Hospital at https://www.lifebridgehealth.org/giving