Alice Hilts

Alice Marie (Murray) Hilts, a long-time resident of La Palma, California, formerly of Stewartville, Minnesota, passed away on December 26, 2025, at the age of 89 years.

Alice attended Stewartville High School in Stewartville, Minnesota, graduating in 1954 as class Salutatorian. She attended Methodist Kahler School of Nursing in Rochester, Minnesota and earned her nursing degree in 1957. She met David "Dave" Hilts, a student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the two were married in the fall of 1958 and moved to Santa Monica, California where Dave was already working at Douglas Aircraft Company. Alice put her nursing skills to use at a hospital in Santa Monica until the fall of 1962, when she and Dave welcomed their first of four children. They moved to Long Beach after they started their family and later moved to La Palma. She continued to stay at home to care for their children and then returned to nursing in 1977 at Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim, California. She retired from nursing in 1998, although she continued to maintain her nursing license as long as she lived.

Alice lived on a farm the first 6 years of her life...Her mother raised her and her five siblings during the Great Depression and World War II. Times were challenging but Alice recalls growing up in a warm and loving home. She was not afraid of hard work - she brought the cows in at the age of five and babysat, cleaned houses, washed towels, and helped with the garden and canning when she was older...

She had many interests - she loved all things athletic but mostly ice skating, fishing in the river by their house and bicycling; she was in class plays, sang in the choir, played clarinet in the band and played piano. Neighbors watched out for each other in her small town, specifically the town doctor and his wife had the children over and used flannel graph stories to tell about Jesus. It was there that she heard the Gospel and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

As an adult Alice continued to have many varied interests. She continued to be athletic - playing volleyball, softball, tennis and golf..She kayaked, windsurfed, hiked and bicycled down from La Palma to Seal Beach on a regular basis with friends and often had breakfast at Ruby’s on the pier. She taught Sunday School for 4 year olds for many decades at Lakewood First Baptist (now Arbor Road Church), was a leader in Pioneer Girls, sang in the choir and was involved with her Sunday School class. Family road trips were common, especially once the family got a motorhome, and Yosemite was her favorite destination. Adventure was Alice's middle name, which is why she hiked Yosemite's Half Dome with her youngest child, just days before her 50th birthday - the day after hiking all the way to the top of Yosemite Falls - and she even had the energy to make dinner for everyone afterwards! Even as a senior she continued to be very active, going to plays and taking the Metro into Los Angeles for all sort of events with her friends...She loved to travel and used her timeshare with family and friends to travel all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia, which was always her dream when she retired. She also went to all the Disney Parks with the exception of Shanghai.

Alice loved life and all that it offered and she treasured her family and friends.She will be deeply missed by her children Elizabeth (Hilts) Haseltine, Murray Hilts, Jonathan Hilts, Todd Hilts, her son-in-law Richard, daughters-in-law Mignon and Minami, her six grandchildren, Rebecca, Christopher, Ryan, Olivia, Aiden, Trevor, Curie and Rosalind, her three great grandchildren and her sister Dorothy (Murray) Saterdalen and her brother John Murray and his wife Ginny.

She is predeceased by her husband David Hilts, her father Allen Murray, her mother Olive (Murray) Wills, her brothers Robert Murray and Richard Murray, and her sister Lois (Murray) Thompson.

A Memorial Service will be held celebrating Alice’s life:
~Saturday, February 7
~10:00 am
~Arbor Road Church
~5336 E Arbor Road
~Long Beach, CA 90808