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October 16, 2007
Friend to Hikers and Appalachian Trail Mourned
Miss Tilly on the porch of her cabin
Photo by Ruth Babylon of Virginia Outdoors Foundation
Used by permission
Matilda "Miss Tillie" King Wood 1918-2007
Next year Appalachian Trail hikers will miss a twenty-year tradition, hot biscuits at Wood's Hole Hostel at the head of Sugar Run Valley, Virginia, cooked by Tillie Wood. Tillie passed away on Sunday, October 14, 2007. Matilda King was born February 27, 1918 in Adalee, Oklahoma, the first child of Carl Lomas King of Knoxville, Tennessee, and Mary Smith King of Winslow, Arkansas. Her education began in a one-room school for Cherokee Indians. At her mother's insistence, the family, including her younger brother, Ben, and sister, Tinky, moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas for a better education. Tillie worked her way through the University of Arkansas where she met Roy K. Wood of Augusta, Arkansas. After Tillie graduated with a Master's in Biology, she married Roy and moved to Sugar Run, Virginia where her husband was studying an elk herd for his Master's thesis in Wildlife Conservation. They spent the first year of their marriage in a hand-hewn chestnut log cabin, with a fireplace for heat and a creek for water. They later bought the cabin which is now the Wood's Hole Hostel. Roy went to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Atlanta, and Tillie moved into an old farm house on Woodstock Road outside of Roswell, Ga. There, Tillie raised her three children, Mary Jo, Ben, and Jere. Tillie taught school; started the first kindergarten in Roswell, which grew to become High Meadows School; organized the first Girl Scout troop; helped organize the Roswell Historical Society; served as president of the Women's Club; traveled with Jimmy Carter and the "Peanut Brigade" to New Hampshire and other states in his Presidential Campaign; was a real estate agent; knitted and gave hundreds of sweaters and dolls to local hospitals for newborns; operated a hostel on the Appalachian Trail; and was involved in establishing many of the institutions that form the foundation for the City of Roswell. Tillie was most proud of the successes of her children and grandchildren. Tillie's husband, Roy Kellum Wood, and her brother, General Benjamin Hardin King, USAF, predeceased her. She is survived by her sister, Dorothy Mills of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; her children, Dr. Mary Jo Harris Osteen, D.V.M., of Ball Ground, Georgia; Benjamin Travis Wood, AIA, of Shanghai, China; and the Honorable Jere Wood, Mayor of Roswell; and her grandchildren, Jere Harris Metcalf, Neville Harris, Amy Wood, and Roy Travis Wood. Tillie's love will be missed by many. The memorial service for Matilda King Wood will be Wednesday, October 17, at 2:00 PM in the Roswell Presbyterian Church, 755 Mimosa Blvd., followed by a reception in the Courtyard Room of the Church. The Reverend Dr. Lane Alderman, assisted by The Reverend Richard Hill and The Reverend Margaret Turney-Ayer, will preside. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the Chattahoochee Nature Center, 9135 Willeo Road, Roswell, Georgia 30075.
Editorial Note: Miss Tilly will be dearly missed by the hiking community. Here at American Hiking Society, we thank her and her family for the lasting legacy that they have left in the form of a conservation easement on the property around the cabin.
Hiking in the News | By Jeffrey Hunter | 01:53 PM
