MATILDA 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 Jimmmy 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. The Cremation Society of the SOUTH
is in charge of the arrangements. 770-420-5557.
Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 10/16/2007.
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