Vennie Marie Hill, a writer, singer, friend, and Street Sense vendor, died Feb. 26. She was 55.
Hill, a Washington native, was born on July 4, 1970 to Shirley M. Hill and Pete Fuller. Those close to Hill remember her as an honest and funny woman who would do anything to help out the people she loved. In her free time, she enjoyed writing and spending time with her cat, Milwaukee.
“She was just so sweet to people,” Peggy Jackson Whitley, a longtime friend of Hill’s, said. “I want them to remember her as she was. A lot of people don’t even really know her like I did. She’s had a happy spirit.”
Lena Taylor, Hill’s sister, said that Vennie was as selfless as she was sweet.
Taylor remembers telling Hill about her pregnancy, informing her that she would soon have a niece or nephew. Hill’s selfless spirit was on full display as she helped her sister by watching the baby while she was at work, Taylor said.
“She would give you the shirt off her back even if she didn’t have anything else to give,” Taylor said.
Sometimes this giving came in the form of connecting people to resources, like Hill introducing Whitley to Street Sense’s vendor program. Whitley said Hill found solace in the community at Street Sense, and she directed those experiencing homelessness to check it out.
“She found a home at Street Sense,” Whitley said. “She found a sincere place where she could say, ‘There’s are people who care about me.’”
Hill showed her the ropes of selling copies of the newspaper, including offering tips on how to react when someone declined to buy a copy.
But the pair’s friendship began long before Street Sense. In fact, Whitley and Hill’s friendship spanned decades, a bond that Whitley said reached BFF status. The pair — who nicknamed each other Whitley as Lulu and Hill as Cootie — would spend evenings together laughing, talking, and oftentimes singing Anita Baker, Tenna Marie, Shirley Caesar and Mariah Carey songs until the sun rose.
“She had a beautiful voice,” Whitley said.
Taylor remembers Vennie’s love for music — a passion that first manifested as Hill was a young girl dreaming of being on Broadway.
Hill loved singing and dancing, and she carried dreams of the stage with her as she ascended from D.C. schools Marie Reed Elementary School to Eastern High School, Taylor said.
In 1994, Hill attended Job Corps in Woodstock, Virginia, to study cosmetology and data entry, according to a family obituary. But while Hill enjoyed doing hair, it paled in comparison to her passion for singing and dancing, Taylor said.
Hill would play Baker’s music on repeat for her nieces and nephews — sometimes to the point where they would repeatedly plead with her: “Aunt Vennie, turn it off. Aunt Vennie turn it off!”
Hill connected with Whitley’s granddaughter through music, too.
Through her tears, Whitley laughed as she pulled up a short video clip on her phone. The video showed Whitley’s granddaughter dancing with a crochet red wig perched on her head. A woman’s laughter can be heard along with the music in the video.
“That’s my grandbaby,” Whitley said, pointing to the young girl in the video on her phone. “She put it on Vennie, and I came around the room like, “What the hell are y’all going on about?”
The musical antics enveloped them in their own little bubble, as the pair danced and laughed together, absolutely beside themselves with glee, Whitley said.
But it wasn’t just her singing voice that stood out to those who loved her; many said it is Vennie’s writing that captured her voice the most poignantly, allowing people to get to know who she was to her very core.
Hill’s love for writing dated back to her time in high school. Taylor remembers Hill jotting down notes to herself — always writing about something.
That’s exactly how Thomas Ratliff, the director of vendor employment at Street Sense, first came to know Hill.
Shortly after Hill joined Street Sense as a vendor in April 2011, Ratliff met her through Street Sense’s Writers’ group — a place, like the rest of Street Sense, that Hill found a home in.
“She had such a compassion for Street Sense,” Taylor said. “She loved to write the articles and show her pictures. She definitely loved to inform you guys things that went on in her life. She didn’t have any secrets.”
Ratliff was leading the Street Sense writers’ group at the time, which is a weekly meeting, led by writing professionals, where people can create poetry, essays, fiction and other pieces of writing.
He remembers Hill struck a deal with him: she wouldn’t join the collective group downstairs, but she’d go upstairs by herself to focus on her writing. Ratliff said Hill took her writing very seriously — sharing candid reflections about her grief after losing her husband and her struggles with addiction — and she often ran the first drafts of her pieces by Ratliff first.
Ratliff said this level of trust was foundational to their friendship. Hill would often call Ratliff to update him about her life and let him know when she was struggling with alcoholism.
“She always had this spirit of trying to move forward and trying to get into a better place,” Ratliff said.
Aida Peery, a fellow Street Sense vendor who sold newspapers on the opposite corner as Hill near Eastern Market, said the best way to get to know her was through her writing. Peery remembers Hill as a funny woman who was bubbly and hardworking.
“She didn’t talk to you directly,” Perry said. “She talks to you through her articles.”
“This path is mine and mine only,” Hill wrote in a piece entitled “More tips for recovery.”
“I practice to become great, then I keep practicing to stay great. I’m trying today to get to know myself all over again. Love yourself today. I’m not used to making good decisions on my own. If I was to put the energy that I put into drinking how I was into living right, I would have already beat my addiction.”
Ratliff remembers her writing talent and her ability to capture raw emotion about her life experiences in a sincere way.
“At some point early on, she struck me,” Ratliff said. “I noticed her because of her honesty around the fact that she was struggling with alcoholism and that she was trying to stay clean.”
Hill wrote dozens upon dozens of articles for Street Sense. Each story chronicled tidbits of her life, including daily happenings, her struggles with addiction, to meeting and falling in love with her late husband, Harmon Bracey.
Hill and Bracey met in 2009. They both worked at the Wendy’s on Piscataway Road, while Hill worked the day shift and Bracey worked the night shift.
In her writing, “My husband,” Hill recalls her manager at the time declaring, “I got the perfect man for you, his name is Harmon.” But Hill wrote that she wasn’t interested at all.
It took a couple more encounters for Hill to shell out her phone number, she recounts in her writing. When they called for the first time — the very evening Hill shared her contact information — the pair chatted until about 2 a.m.
“Come and find out he was the perfect man for me …” Hill wrote. “I fell asleep on the phone and I fell in love with his voice. He was the sweetest thing.”
In January 2024, Bracey was struck by a car. Hill’s friends said a bit of her light diminished as a wave of grief overtook her. Yet she channeled her emotion into her writing.
“I still dream of him at night,” Hill wrote in her piece called “After the morning after.” “I miss his touch. I remember him lying in our bed, reading his Bible or listening to it on his phone. I miss his smile most of all. I miss waking up, seeing his face, and hearing his voice.”
Hill was preceded in death by her husband. Bracey, her sister Bernice Board, and her brother William Taylor Jr.
“She had a broken heart,” Peery said of Hill after Bracey died.
Despite whatever challenges Hill was facing, those close to her remember her resilience and spirit throughout adversity.
“At the same time, she always smiled,” Ratliff said.
That’s how Taylor will remember her sister: as a forthright, happy person who never failed to make her laugh.
“Vennie was a joyful person,” Taylor said.
Hill had no children, but treated her cat Milwaukee like one of her own. Whitley said she named the cat after the beer. Taylor’s son will now oversee Milwaukee’s care.
Hill is survived by her mother Shirley Hill; sister Lena Taylor; nieces Dawn, India, Roseanne, Egypt, and Faith; nephews Tymark and Carrell; her favorite aunt Barbara Owens; among a host of other family, friends, and acquaintances, the family obituary reads.
