HOLLIS – To those who knew her, Hilda Hildreth was far more than the town’s oldest resident, she was a dedicated community member, avid gardener and photographer, and an active, funny woman with long, white hair and bright blue eyes.

“My husband and I would often see her in the yard right after she washed her hair,” Hildreth’s former neighbor Priscilla Lehoullier said Tuesday. “It looked like we were seeing an angel out there.”

Hildreth died May 24 at the age of 104. She would have turned 105 this summer and was honored with the Boston Post Cane as the town’s oldest resident in 2008.

Born in 1907 in Goffstown, Hildreth and her family moved in 1918 to Hollis, where her father established Lull Farm. Her brother Louis continued to run the farm until the 1970s.

Hildreth worked as a telephone-switch operator for the Hollis Telephone Company, and was a founding member of the Hollis Historical Society and the Colonial Garden Club in town.

It was her dedication to these groups, as well as the many other volunteer opportunities Hildreth took part in during her 94 years in town, that those who knew her say made her stand out among other residents.

“She was always part of everything in Hollis,” said Historical Society member Martha Davis, who knew Hildreth for many years. “She’s been such a wonderful, involved person.”

Historical Society member Dianne Rizzo also recalled Hildreth’s love of local history Tuesday, and said she was instrumental in the researching and writing a town history book and was always willing to provide the Historical Society with some of her own historic photographs and other items.

“She had a very good memory,” Rizzo said. “She probably had the history of Hollis all in her head.”

Hildreth recorded some of these memories about nine years ago, her family said, recalling what the town was like when she was a child and how it has changed since then.

When Hildreth was young, nearly everyone who lived in town, worked in town, she wrote, and many families had their own chickens for eggs and sometimes a cow.

There were only 125 telephones connected when her family moved here, Hildreth wrote, and there were no paved roads.

Hildreth also recalled her years attending school in the Farley Building, now being restored by the local Heritage Commission.

But while Hildreth’s memory of local history was well known throughout town, it was her ability to remain active in the community even in her 90s and 100s that those who knew her said was truly amazing.

“What stands out to me is that she did so much at her age,” Rizzo said. “It always fascinated me that at 103 she’d be out there raking leaves. She must have had some stamina.”

Other friends and family also recalled Hildreth’s young-at-heart attitude and desire to stay active even in the later years of her life.

Lehoullier, Hildreth’s neighbor for 17 years, recalled a morning just a couple years ago when she and her husband saw Hildreth sitting on the ground in her backyard. The couple thought their elderly neighbor must have fallen, but when Lehoullier’s husband went to check on her, Hildreth was merely getting low to take a picture of her cat.

“She was sitting there with her legs straight out in front of her, and when she saw my husband she just jumped right up, in her 90s,” Lehoullier said. “She wasn’t holding onto anything, I remember my husband was very impressed.”

Hildreth lived near the historic town center and loved to sit on her porch and talk to those who passed by. When she was honored as the town’s oldest resident, a portion of the sidewalk in front of her home became known as “Hilda’s Walk.”

And for those who knew her well, it is hard to imagine the town without Hildreth’s strong presence.

“We’ve known this of course was going to come, she was 104,” Davis said. “But still, you can’t believe that she’s not going to be sitting out on her porch in the sunshine.”

A memorial service for Hildreth will be held in the Congregational Church of Hollis, where Hildreth was a member for 90 years, on Tuesday, June 5, at 2 p.m.

Memorial donations can be made to the Hollis Historical Society or the Hollis Fireman’s Association.

Danielle Curtis can be reached at 594-6557 or dcurtis@nashuatelegraph.com.