Muriel Lyla Hankins Stockil Pike

 1916 -

Muriel Stockil Pike, a violinist and pianist, was associated with the music program at Helderberg College for nearly two decades. She also served as a secretary in the South-East Africa Union office in the 1970s.

Muriel was born in South Africa, the second of five children born to missionary doctor Harry Gordon and Violet Beatrice Patchett Hankins. Her maternal grandfather, Ira John Hankins, was a pioneering missionary in South Africa who had been born in the United States and graduated from Battle Creek College, the first institution of higher education in the Seventh-day Adventist church. She was raised in Durbin where her father maintained his practice.

She attended Helderberg College in the 1930s, an honor student well known for her artistry as a violinist. She married John Hudson Stockil, whom she had met while attending HC. Following his sudden death in 1941, she worked as a secretary and in 1949 was hired to teach violin and piano at HC and conduct string ensembles.

Stockil married pastor C. S. Pike in 1956 and would continue to assist in strings at HC until the 1960s. She completed her career as Office Secretary in the South-East Africa Union Office.

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Sources: U.S. Passport Application for Harry Gordon Hankins and family, 6 December 1922; South African Division Outlet, 1 May 1941,7; 1 September 1948, 3; 15 April 1949, 4; 15 August 1962, 11; 15 March 1956,12; 1880 U.S. Census Records (Ira Hankins); The Journal of True Education, December 1948, 24; email from Wilhelmina Dunbar, March 2011.