Jill Bailey Chenet, five months pregnant, was in the waning days of a peaceful, seaside vacation.



The former Salem woman and her husband, Matt, waded into shallow water off Buxton, N.C., not far from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It was late in the day. Few people were on the beach.



All was well until the sandy ocean floor plummeted from beneath them. Suddenly, the young couple was in deep water, right at a rip current. Matt Chenet fought for 30 minutes to keep Jill above water and get her to shore, but to no avail.



Rescuers arrived to find them both floating helplessly in the water. Though Jill survived for a time, she died later, taking their unborn child, whom they planned to name Olive, with her. Matt spent the night in a Norfolk hospital and was released this morning.



"Aw, she was a doll," said Jill's grieving mother, Barbara Bailey of Salem. "A gentle spirit," she added. Jill's parents, Barbara and Jack, along with her older brother Jason and older sister Julie Hamilton still live in Salem.



"She … couldn't wait for her little girl. She wanted nothing more than to be a mother," Barbara Bailey said.



Jill had a compassionate streak all her life, friends and family said.



"She really wanted to reach out to help others," said the Rev. Jim Parke, the priest who married Jill and Matt at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Salem a few years ago. "I think that had been part of her whole family."



"Never said a bad word about anybody," Barbara Bailey said.



Parke, a close family friend, knew Jill from age 4.



She was shy and gentle, but "self-possessed" and "determined."



Her personality "wasn't going to fill up a room, but you knew she was there."



After graduating from Salem High School, Jill studied journalism and French at Washington & Lee University. But she found her calling as a teacher. She loved children, her mother said.



She taught for a time at Charlotte Country Day School in North Carolina before returning to school at the University of Virginia, where she earned a master's degree in education as a reading specialist.



Since then, she'd been working at The River School in Washington, D.C. Many students at the school are hearing impaired.



In her professional life, the once shy girl found confidence and a calling, said her mother. "The children loved her, the parents loved her."



Just last week, Jill noted on her Facebook page that "one human life is no more than a tiny blip." Why waste it being unhappy? "Far better, surely, to use our short time here living a meaningful life, enriched by our sense of connection with others and being of service to them," she wrote.



She found her connection with her future husband at a Washington party.



"Matt saw how she was interacting with all of her friends, and how happy she was, and he wanted to meet her because of that," Barbara Bailey said.



The couple remained in Washington but relished time away from the hectic city.



A friend had offered them use of house in Buxton for two weeks as a getaway – likely their last without a child in tow. This was to be the couple's first.



They had been in Buxton for 10 days or so, having a wonderful time, Barbara Bailey said, "videoing the fun they were having for their baby girl."



Wednesday, as the couple waded into the surf, it was evening, and the lifeguards had clocked out for the day, so Matt was left to struggle alone for a while.



Press reports from coastal news sources report that passersby found the couple first and brought them toward shore as rescuers arrived.



Matt was alive and airlifted to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Jill, unconscious, was taken to a local hospital. Doctors there found a weak pulse and airlifted her to the hospital in Norfolk as well. She was pronounced dead there at 10:30 p.m.



Parke spent three hours at the hospital that evening, consoling Matt.



The bereaved husband and would-be father asked him to bless his unborn daughter.