Aida Isabel Hoff Mothes, 96, of Renick, passed away Tuesday, June 30, 2026, at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center in Lewisburg, from complications of pneumonia and heart failure.
Born September 24, 1929, in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, she was the daughter and only child of the late Mami and Morgan Hoff.
Upon high school graduation she attended Fairview Hospital/Nursing Faculty in Minneapolis and became a licensed registered nurse. Marriage to Gordon Mothes in 1951, took her to Germany for a couple of years. Subsequently, upon their return to the U.S., she briefly worked at George Washington Hospital in Washington D.C. and later she worked for 35 years as an operating room nurse at Loudoun County Memorial Hospital in Leesburg, Virginia. She also was the co-founder with Gordon, in the 1960s, of their family business, Blue Ridge Aerial Surveys, which aerially documented the progression of urban expansion of the Washington metropolitan area. In the 1970s Aida took flying lessons and earned her pilot’s license.
She and Gordon moved from Loudoun County to their home at Friars Hole Cave Preserve on Droop Mountain in 1981, where they managed their cattle farm, the conservation of the caves, and continued running the aerial photography business, with son Robert.
She was an avid walker, and additionally, enjoyed vegetable and flower gardening, her companion dogs, reading, being with her family, and conversing with visiting cave explorers and neighbors. She loved being at her home located on a high knoll and observing the changing weather patterns.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by Gordon Mothes; and later by her second husband, Stephen Grover; and second cousin, Marilou Baillargeon, who lived in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, and occasionally visited Aida in Renick.
She is survived by four children, Patricia Ann, Barbara Lee, June Maxine and Robert Morgan, all of the Renick area; seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. John Paul Black, Eddie Vaughan and Tonja Wiley-Mothes are family members through marriage to three of her children.
A memorial service in honor of her life will be held at her Droop Mountain home Saturday, July 25, 2026, at 5 p.m.
Family and friends are warmly invited to attend.
