BLUE HILL – Edna (Eddie) Hineline, 96, of Blue Hill, died quietly at the Penobscot Nursing Home, early Saturday morning, July 31. She was the daughter of Proctor and Garnett Conklin and wife of the late Marion (Mic) Hineline.

Her parents had homesteaded on adjoining claims in North Dakota and combined their living quarters on the common boundary to make a family home. “Eddie” grew up on the North Dakota Plains, graduating from Surry High School, Surry, N.D. Then she taught in a one-room schoolhouse and operated a private kindergarten to earn tuition to buy a piano and to attend teachers’ college.

Graduating from a two-year teacher preparation course in 12 months, she taught two years in a two-room school at Twin Lakes, N.D, where the students came line-of-sight over the prairie. There she was instructed by her board to let the other teacher put wood in the furnace and turn the crank on the automobile. Apparently they thought her too small for these chores.

She completed her undergraduate work at Manchester College in 1934, and later that year married a baker, Marion Hineline. As a young couple, they lived in northern Wisconsin. During World War II, when teachers were badly needed, she returned to the classroom, riding the three miles to her school on the local milk wagon and walking the three miles home. Later, when her husband became allergic to flour, she taught again, so that he could attend college and receive his education degrees.

In 1950, the couple moved to Illinois, where they both held teaching positions, hers being in the Homewood-Flossmoor Elementary School System. In 1962, she received her master’s degree as a reading consultant from the University of Chicago.

Five years later she and Mic moved to Montreal, where they both held positions on the faculty of education at McGill University and in 1973, they retired to Blue Hill, to be near their daughter, Gayle Durnbaugh, her husband, Jerry and their children.

It was only after her retirement that she developed a distinctive style of artwork – free hand embroidery that she called “Stitchery Painting.” She practiced that art, which was exhibited both locally and at the Cleveland Art Museum; she was commissioned to do several pieces and taught interested students from around the country, until her hearing and sight failed.

Throughout her life she was a model of strength and independence. She also was a member of the Blue Hill Congregational Church, the Bagaduce Chorale, the League of Women Voters and Delta Kappa Gamma.

She is survived by her daughter, Gayle Durnbaugh, of Blue Hill; a son, Philip Hineline and his wife, Katy, of Philadelphia, and Stonington; grandchildren, Jennifer (Mrs. Kurt) Denlinger, of Asbury, N.J., Lindsey Durnbaugh, of Otisfield, Andrea (Mrs. Tim) Killiard, of Windham and Arn Cheang and his wife, Kong Nhess, of Lynn, Mass.; and eight great-grandchildren.

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