--- alias: - Margaret Hunt - Margaret Hill born: 1915-10-19 category: Other created: 2026-09-21 died: 2007 location: Dallas, Texas summary: Eldest child of H.L. Hunt, his business aide, trustee of her lobotomized brother's fortune, who after the 1980 silver collapse made Bunker and Herbert Hunt pledge more property to protect Placid Oil. tags: - Person - MargaretHuntHill - HLHunt - HuntFamily - PlacidOil - HuntPetroleum - SilverThursday updated: 2026-09-21 --- Margaret Hunt was born at Lake Village, Arkansas, on October 19, 1915, the first child of [H.L. Hunt](/people/hl-hunt/) and [Lyda Bunker Hunt](/people/lyda-bunker-hunt/). On October 15, 1938, she married Albert Galatyn Hill, an accountant at Hunt Oil, who stayed with the company. She "worked for her father as a business aide and confidante, acquiring training available to few other men or women." When Hunt's bigamous wife [Frania Tye](/people/frania-tye-lee/) came to a [Dallas](/places/dallas-texas/) hotel room to settle with him she found the twenty-five-year-old Margaret there with her father. Her daughter, Lyda Hunt Hill, born in the fall of 1942, was Hunt's first grandchild.[^1] The Hills owned the Garden of the Gods Club. Margaret took no part in the daily running of the family companies, "but she was always on hand when something big was in the works." Employees at Hunt Oil called her "the big boss." She sat on the board of Hunt Energy with her brothers and on the boards of the two trusts of her brother [Hassie](/people/hassie-hunt/), from which the first family on occasion lent itself money. At family meetings on [Placid Oil Company](/organizations/placid-oil-company/), an insider said, "even Bunker and Herbert were quiet." The ordinary course was described by another: "Bunker says, 'I know how it is; it's like this.' Margaret says, 'No, it's like this.' Herbert says, 'No, it's like Bunker says; I took notes.'" She waited in a motel rather than outside the courtroom during the Lee trial in [Shreveport](/places/shreveport-louisiana/) in 1978. On the copy of the family genealogy that she gave to the New York Public Library she struck out "Prepared for Mrs. H. L. Hunt" and wrote in her mother's name.[^2] After the silver market broke in March 1980 she insisted that [Bunker](/people/nelson-bunker-hunt/) and [Herbert](/people/william-herbert-hunt/) put up more of their own property to secure Placid's interest in the silver partnership. "Margaret never liked the way Bunker and Herbert were wheeling and dealing," a source said. "After the silver collapse, she put her foot down." She asked Bunker in the family's discussions what he had been trying to do.[^3] Her trust and Hassie's owned Hunt Petroleum. In November 2007 her grandson Al Hill III sued his father, his sisters, his aunts, and the trustee Tom Hunt over the management of the two trusts.[^4] [^1]: Hurt, Harry, III. *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash*. W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 47, 125, 128, 134. [^2]: Hurt, Harry, III. *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash*. W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 17, 220, 331, 372, 391. [^3]: Hurt, Harry, III. *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash*. W.W. Norton, 1981, p. 415. [^4]: "Hunt vs. Hunt: The Fight Inside Dallas' Wealthiest Family," *D Magazine,* March 2008.