Bea Knight

Bea Knight, known to her family as Jeril and formally as Beatrice Jerilyn Knight, was a private citizen of Rock Island, Illinois, whose death at 82 was reported in a family obituary in the Quad-City Times. She was not a celebrity, and readers who arrive at this page after searching variations of her name are often looking for other, unrelated people who share it, including a professional tennis player, a fiction author, a character from the video game Hollow Knight, and the protagonist of the web novel The Knight King Who Returned with a God, as well as a real estate figure associated with the firm Knight Frank. This page is about the Rock Island woman whose passing was announced in September 2026, and it draws only on what her family made public in her obituary and on further verification since.

Bea Knight was born in 1943 in Davenport, Iowa, to Cecil and Violet Knight, and grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, graduating from Rock Island High School in 1962. Five years later she was hired as a Warehouseman at the Rock Island Arsenal, the large United States Army installation on the Mississippi River that has long been one of the region's largest employers. She was, by her family's account, the first person with epilepsy hired into that role, an achievement that was a source of lasting pride for her.

She went on to spend 28 years in that job, earning strong performance reviews and an excellent attendance record before retiring at the GS-4 pay grade. Outside of work, those who knew her remembered her for small, specific pleasures, among them Brown Sugar Pop-Tarts, ice cream, New Year traditions, elephants depicted with their trunks raised, lucky pennies, and copper jewelry. After her mother's death she lived independently for a time, and in 2008 she moved in with her nephew Russell Hoeper and his wife Jennifer, remaining part of their household for the rest of her life.

Bea Knight died in the early hours of Sunday, September 27, 2026, at the age of 82. Her family said she passed peacefully in her sleep, and no other cause of death has been made public. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Jaclyn Brase, and a niece, Jocelyn Wolf, and is survived by her nephew Russell Hoeper and his wife Jennifer, their children, and several great-nieces and great-nephews. In keeping with her wishes, her family arranged for cremation rather than a public funeral service.

There has been no wider public reaction to her death beyond the notice placed by her family, which is consistent with her life as a private individual rather than a public figure. Her obituary frames her significance in local and personal terms: a long, steady career at a major regional employer, achieved despite a disability that could easily have kept her out of that work altogether, and a close family who cared for her in her final years.