Anne Hart
HART Anne Born Margaret Eleanor Anne Hill in Winnipeg, Manitoba on October 7th, 1935, passed away peacefully with her daughter by her side on October 9th, 2019 in Victoria, British Columbia after 84 years of a life lived with panache, passion, delight, and a strong sense of social justice. Anne led two accomplished careers. As a librarian she nurtured the Newfoundlandia collection at Memorial University Libraries, building the Centre for Newfoundland Studies into the largest collection of published materials on all aspects of Newfoundland and Labrador anywhere, and an Archives unit in 1982 that now stands on its own as the University Library's Archives and Special Collections. As a writer Anne published three biographies (two of Agatha Christie’s fictional detectives, Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot, and one of Labrador explorer Mina Hubbard) and many poems and short stories. Anne also guided other authors over many decades, edited scores of manuscripts, and was active in the St. John’s literary community, and helped establish the Winterset Prize. For this work she obtained Library Research Professor status at Memorial University, an honourary degree from Memorial in 1997, and the Order of Canada in 2004. Anne loved Newfoundland, cats, dogs, horses, family, friends; literature, storytelling, theatre, politics, debate, and obviously the CBC; she shone at dinner parties, meetings, and planning sessions of all kinds. If you asked her a question, she would often answer with a good story, often funny; she was known for her wicked sense of humour. Anne was orphaned at the age of 7 and thereafter she and her siblings John and Mary were raised by Anita and Wylie Baird in Nova Scotia, on the Nappan Experimental Farm which Wylie managed. Anita was their aunt; she and Anne’s father, Edgar Murray McCheyne Hill (civil engineer) hailed from Guelph, Ontario. Anne’s mother Adeline Olive Earls (teacher) had emigrated from Clones, Ireland, after studying at Queen’s University, Belfast. (John later settled in Montreal as a chemical engineer with his wife, Anne Christie; Mary married Robert Purdy and settled in Amherst, Nova Scotia). After several years attending the two-room school at Nappan, Anne continued her education at Netherwood School for Girls in Rothesay, New Brunswick, and went on to earn a BA at Kings College in Halifax (where she met and married David Hart; they remained lifelong friends), and a library degree from McGill University in Montreal. As a librarian, Anne worked briefly at the British Museum library, the Dalhousie University Library (where she was Kipling Librarian), Queen’s University Library, and the Newfoundland Public Library, before going to work at the library at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) (where David taught in the Psychology Department and her three children Susan, Peter, and Stephen all studied and/or worked over the years). Anne was predeceased in 2010 by her second child, Peter Hart, an accomplished historian of the Irish Revolution who held the Chair of Irish Studies at MUN; this was the chief sorrow of her life. But she had many joys and accomplishments, and spent her last years with her daughter Susan in Victoria BC, frequently visited by her son Stephen (Kingston, Ontario). The strength of her personality shines on. In lieu of flowers, Anne's family would welcome tax deductible donations in Anne's memory to the Archives & Special Collections https://www.library.mun.ca/asc/archives/aboutus/ or the Centre for Newfoundland Studies https://www.library.mun.ca/cns/help/.