Trudy Mari Hiller's Obituary
Trudy Mari Hiller was born for the spotlight. Whether she was performing on a stage, working in an office, playing games with her family, or seated in a crowded restaurant, she had a way of drawing everyone’s attention. Sure, sometimes her behavior mortified her children. But she had to entertain. Her wit, smile, and spontaneity will be deeply missed.
Trudy passed away after a short illness on April 15, 2026, at the age of 76, surrounded by her family.
She was born to Ray and Joyce Johnson in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the very last day of the 1940s. A New Years Eve birthday assured that people were always up for a party on her big day.
As a student at Will Rogers High School, she discovered that she felt accepted by the theater kids in a way she had never felt before. A lifelong love of the stage was created in those early years that has passed down to her children and several of her grandchildren.
She met her first husband doing a musical at Theatre Tulsa. He was in the orchestra. She was in the chorus. She later performed in two shows—The Fantasticks and The Sound of Music—while pregnant with her first child. (He likes to brag that he was doing theater before he was even born.)
And, of course, she met the love of her life in the theater. Her youngest daughter introduced her to William Hiller during a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Trudy was doing costumes. William ran the follow spot. They married in 1989 and have been happily together ever since.
Even when not on stage, she could often be heard singing, whether it was appropriate or not. And while she loved Broadway classics, she was just as likely to be singing a tune she had just made up. She could turn anything into music. (This fact greatly impressed her children in their younger years.)
But she was also great at listening. There must be thousands of people—family, friends, complete strangers—whose lives were made easier because she paused to hear their troubles and offer some loving advice.
She treated everyone as though they were her lifelong friends. That meant that absolutely every person she encountered was likely to receive some good-natured teasing. That might mean that the perplexed passengers of a nearby canoe on the Illinois river got grapes tossed at them. Or that a waiter was asked to please fill the sugar caddy only to find that it was once again empty when he returned to the table. This would happen a few times until Trudy said something like, “I don’t know, Derrick, I’m enjoying the meal, but the sugar caddy is still empty.” Often this would lead to something along the lines of the waiter bringing an entire box of 5,000 sugar packets and setting them triumphantly in front of her. (On the occasions she got someone to play along, she was elated.)
While visiting her son at college in Santa Fe she fell in love with the mountains. She and William moved to Santa Fe in 1993, where she fully embraced the local culture, cool air, snow, and the smell of Hatch green chiles roasting. The birth of her grandkids brought her back to Tulsa, but she relished quiet mountain vacations.
Trudy was an animal lover. She was especially fond of bears. No one knows how many bear figurines, stuffies, sculptures, and prints decorate her home. Didn’t know what to get Trudy for Christmas? Just buy something with a bear on it. She’ll love it.
And, while Pixie was not a bear, Trudy loved her tiny shih tzu. They especially enjoyed watching cooking shows together—apparently Pixie was a Gordon Ramsay fan.
A lifelong Democrat, Trudy believed we could make the world a better place through compassion, caring, and a commitment to true equality.
She was an amazing gift giver. She had a way of finding something that the recipient had not even known existed, but now realized they could not live without. (Sand scooters, giant coffee mug planters, Butt Rub, the softest pajamas ever, packages of microwavable rice, a flying frog, an autographed 8x10 of Bruce Willis.)
In addition to her husband, Trudy is survived by her three children, James William Evans, Jennifer Frick and Christy Jackson-Evans, her eight grandchildren, James Christian Evans, Kayla Jackson, Katie Pohl, Claudia Jackson, Ethan William Evans, Lexie Frick, Greta Evans and Eliza Evans, and two great-grandchildren, Archer Rayborn and Luke Rayborn-Evans. (A third great-grandchild, a girl, is due in June.)
What’s your fondest memory of Trudy?
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