Hailey Gill proved to be a handful as a teenager, which is all her mother will say about her daughter's defiant spell.
It wasn't until her first year at Georgia State University that Ms. Gill became focused and got her life on track. She earned a bachelor's degree in social work and joined the Barrow County Department of Children and Family Services.
It was the right fit for the former high school cheerleader, a 1997 Brookwood High School graduate. She never deviated from wanting help children, even when she was rebellious.
Hailey Rochelle Gill of Jefferson, who was diagnosed in June 2008 with peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a rare cancer of the connective tissue that surrounds the nerves, died Saturday from complications of the disease at Athens Regional Medical Center. She was 32. A funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday at New Community Church in Hoschton. Evans Funeral Home and Memory Gardens in Jefferson is handling arrangements.
Ms. Gill was so devoted to her profession she had talked about getting a master's degree to counsel teens, said her mother, Sheila Watford Gill of Statham.
"Personally, she knew that as a social worker she was helping kids and getting them out of bad situations, where they couldn't be hurt anymore or be around meth labs all the time," her mother said. "She'd retrieve children from unfit homes, check on children and families to see how they were doing, and go to court for some cases."
Ms. Gill had been a social worker for four years before her cancer diagnosis. The disease went into remission twice, but for the past year she had been under the care of a doctor affiliated with the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
When first diagnosed, Ms. Gill received several months of vacation and sick time donated by her colleagues in Barrow's social services department. Ms. Gill had hoped to return to work, but in early 2009 had to take a medical discharge.
Two years ago, she married James Michael Atwell at a family beach house in Alligator Point, Fla. "It was a beach wedding and a wonderful time," her mother said.
Additional survivors include her father, George Gill of Statham, and a daughter, Colleen McKenzie Gill of Jefferson, and a sister, Heather Swint of Jefferson.
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