First, being 60+ has little to do with buying an electric bike. Absent a specific disability, your mother probably can build hill-climbing strength if she wants to. If she doesn't want to, she can buy an electric bike or walk the hill.

In addition, why is walking the hill an indignity? Is this her perception, or is it yours? I walked hills all the time before I built strength, and that's in Manhattan where we have very little in the way of hills.

People who are snobbish about bikes are just like people who are snobbish about anything else -- probably not worth your time or your mother's.

Anyone who wants an electric bike for whatever reason should buy one. In your mother's case, I would encourage her to look at whether proper gearing would allow her eventually conquer that hill, and to stop worrying about what other people think.