Ms. Hill's way
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
By Ben Cannon
Jackson Hole, Wyoming - Marion Hill is the name of this community’s most recognizable homeless resident.
“Ms. Hill,” as she prefers, stands out for a number of reasons, including the fact that she has a habit of carrying on a conversation when it appears that the person at the other end isn’t physically present.
She also happens to be one of the very few African American women in Jackson Hole.
Although people occasionally buy her a stay in a motel room, Hill sleeps most nights of the year under a bridge. Her “campsite,” as she calls it, sits along Flat Creek. She has a thick bedroll of blankets laid next to the water, and her belongings arranged in a row of seven or eight plastic bags that neatly line a concrete ledge. It often gets windy down there, and in winter the snow blows in, she told me.
Hill’s story is one that few people here know. Even community aid workers who have had contact with her over the years have been able to piece together only so much of her history. She refuses the kind of help some people think would benefit her most, according to one social worker who asked not to be identified.
But those options – placing
her in a facility that helps people like Hill, reuniting her with family members who can help take care of her– would involve permanently leaving Jackson Hole, and that’s not something she has been willing to do.
“We’ve offered to help get her anywhere,” the social worker said, “but she won’t do it unless it’s a round-trip ticket.”
The inevitable question most have about Hill, is why a person who has to sleep outside would choose to live in a community that sees some of the longest, coldest winters in the continental U.S.?
From Texas to WyomingHill came to Jackson Hole in the early part of this decade, about eight or nine years ago. She grew up in Dallas, she said, and came to Wyoming because of similarities she sees between Wyoming and Texas.
“The history is the same,” she likes to say.
Visiting with her in a cafe the other day, she allowed me to view an old driver’s license that expired in 2002. The woman in the picture is much heavier-looking than the woman who sat next to me. She’s now a diminutive 4 feet, 11 inches.
The address on the license is for an apartment building in east Dallas, not far from an industrial district, according to Google Maps.
Marion Lanelle Hill turned 49 last month.
Because Jackson Hole has very few homeless residents – Hill is perhaps the only non-transient one – and due to the various ways she stands out, Hill has become a fixture of the community to many who observe her and sometimes interact with her.
Recently, Hill has made an early morning visit to Hard Drive Café part of her routine. The restaurant’s owner, Ruth Ann Petroff, said she welcomes her unusual customer.
“I think we all have a curiosity about her story,” Petroff said. “She seems to be homeless and yet she dresses so nicely and is always very polite. It’s not a picture of some indigent person down on her luck. When she talks she seems like she’s educated, and even a little bit worldly.”
BenefactorsOn a cold, wet night earlier this summer, Hill was still hanging around the cafe at closing time. Petroff’s husband, Jackson Mayor Mark Barron, drove her to a motel and got her a room for the night.
There are reports that she may have returned there few times since, telling the front desk clerk that a benefactor would pick up the tab.
But because Hill, who sometimes has profane outbursts, lives her life in the public spaces of this usually peaceable community, she sometimes gets into trouble.
She is welcome in most places but has been expelled from others.
One person who has assisted Hill told me she caused one disruption too many at the Teton County Library. A library employee, citing patron confidentiality, wouldn’t comment.
Numerous accounts have her getting kicked out of restaurants and off of public buses.
Yet for the most part, Hill apparently gets by without creating too great a disturbance. A state facility, determining Hill posed no threat to herself or others, said it would not keep her and returned her to Jackson, according to a source.
“If Marion had a cell phone [to her ear], people would think she’s as normal as anyone,” said Roy Meyers, director of the Good Samaritan Mission, which offers shelter, but mainly to homeless men and only on a short-term basis.
Meyers said Hill is always welcome to eat dinner at the Mission, yet she has not decided to do so for some time. “Her schedule doesn’t match up with ours,” he said.
Meyers is one of several people who noted Hill’s sense of style, calling her “the best dressed homeless person in the U.S.” She favors fashionable belts she finds at the thrift stores that accept the clothing vouchers she receives. Hill periodically swaps out old clothes, and always dresses very warmly; it seems she’s never without a jacket.
Ambassador of Flat CreekEven while Hill often speaks to no one present, and sometimes seems angry at whomever is on the receiving end, she can also be very present and engaging.
I first approached her at her Flat Creek campsite one day, and she remembered my name when I found her again a day or two later. The last time I saw her, on Sunday, she asked when the article would come out.
Hill considers herself deeply Christian. She writes pages upon pages of notes that are presumably related to her role as “an ambassador,” a title she carries for doing God’s work and observing the world around her.
She enjoys the natural beauty of Jackson Hole and the animals, and has the ability to say things that the more poetic souls of this green planet might find profound.
“The mountains are family,” she told me one day during lunch at Subway. “They’re uncles and aunts and sisters and brothers. They are related.”
Only, they’re not our relatives, she explained.
It’s hard to get a handle on why exactly she has decided to stay here the last nine years, but some might like to think her presence could suggest something positive about this community as a whole.
“The story is, how does Jackson Hole treat her?” said Teton County Attorney Steve Weichman, who added he does not believe Hill has posed a significant nuisance to authorities who occasionally deal with her. “It’s like a barometer for our own health. For what it’s worth, she’s chosen Jackson. Maybe that’s a statement that we’re OK.”
Weichman posited there are probably countless unnamed people who have assisted Hill with food, money or simply a ride somewhere.
One person who said he has given Hill a lift told me he believed some family has even offered Hill an unused cabin during some part of winters past.
Hill, however, said that’s not true.
“I wouldn’t know what the inside of a cabin looked like,” she said.
Hill expressed mixed but mostly positive feelings about living here, just like a lot of people I know. She told me she feels most of the residents here are “warm-hearted people,” but added that the community could use “a touch-up.”
“I’m not gonna say there’s attitude, but they [locals] don’t know how to respond necessarily to someone they don’t know,” she said.
Amen, Ms. Hill!, some might add.
At home in the TetonsHill traveled throughout most of Wyoming before she arrived in Jackson Hole. She’s moved by one cousin to the Grand Tetons in particular – Devil’s Tower, across the state in northeastern Wyoming.
She said she still has family in Texas, although no one contacted for this story knew how to contact them, or if Hill has any contact with them herself. It appears she does not have any contact, according to a case worker.
“I know they [social workers] tried to contact the family but she didn’t want to do that,” said Joni Weed a volunteer organizer for St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is one of the valley’s largest resources for people in need.
“What I know is that she doesn’t want to leave but would be better off if she left,” Weed said.
Another person who has assisted Hill said she has “a lot of pretty significant mental health issues.“
Still, others happily welcome Hill as the valley’s most unorthodox resident.
“She’s another part of the tapestry that makes our community so unique,” Petroff said.
Photos of Ms. Hill by Derek DiluzioPERMALINK:
Ms. Hill's way | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories
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