Louise Arthur Hall

Frances Louise Arthur Hall was born February 28th, 1921 in Lynchburg, Virginia to parents James Thomas Hall and Frances Marie Hall. She passed peacefully from this world on March 13th, 2011 at The University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is preceded in death by two devoted husbands, Edward J. Arthur and Eugene L. Hall, her loyal sister Vivian Humphrey and her beloved grandchildren, Wayne Ragland and Kaye Frances Bailey.

She is survived by her children, Edward Thomas Arthur, Joy Frances Arthur, Annis Marie Hight and Nora Jane Arthur, her step-daughters Mary M. Delara, Linda H. Poore, Rebecca H. Walker, and Laura H. Watson, and seven grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren, nine step grandchildren and twelve step great-grandchildren.

Born at the end of the winter of 1921 during a snow storm as Mother Nature heaved out one last great sigh, Louise forever lived her life in the joyful contemplation of the beauty of spring and all that the seasons provided. An avid fisherwoman at Coleman Falls and Snowden, on any given day her catch was superior to that of her companions. She grew gardens of great size and staggering variety and diligently set to lining her shelves with the cannings those gardens provided; a way to enjoy the hard work and contributions of summer and fall all the year through.

Louise was a proud member of the 1938 graduating class of Marcuse High School in Big Island, Virginia and until very recently was a regular attendee of their annual high school reunions. She maintained careful possession of cards received for her graduation until the very day she died and kept in constant contact with these earliest childhood friends over the course of her entire life.

Whip smart and fantastically well-read in between raising her children she worked at the Cotton Mill, Blue Buckle, and Craddock & Terry, retiring from G.E. at the age of 61. She could work a crossword puzzle faster than anyone, get the answer to final Jeopardy faster than anyone and correct your understanding of the precipitation of the Great Depression, World War II, Korea and the Cold War better than your average college history professor.

Her skill with a set of knitting needles and a crochet hook were a marvel and a miracle and a blessing to all who were lucky enough to have known her. From the wispy and delicate and lovely little doilies that now line our prettiest sideboards to the thick-knitted wool booties that all of our children wear on their feet, to the heaviest afghans that we once huddled under during college and that now lay carefully folded at the end of our beds as grownups, her ability to render capable and quiet and competent love using only her hands leaves us now with a tangible reminder of her.

We remember her now in the place she loved best among the people she loved best doing the things she loved best. Her porch swing on a warm spring afternoon, Boston bull terrier and tuxedo kitty at her feet, talking with her best girlfriends and enjoying the scent of the flowers she was a master of. The red geraniums and the irises and the lilies and the azaleas that lined her yard and the knowledge of which she had forgotten more than some people will ever know. She knew their secret names and the best ways to make them grow and the tricks to make them beautiful.

This is what those of us who were lucky enough to have been blessed with her kindness and with her sharp and shrewd gaze will find solace in. That in a life of 90 years the mark she has left is a reminder of creation and of beauty, of the propagation of flowers and of the ceaseless desire to craft things of usefulness and meaning, things that we can share with the people we love, things that can keep us all warm at night. Her soul resting now in peace, a daughter, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a friend, all of it done with her own special brand of powerful grace.

Funeral services will be conducted at 11 a.m. Friday, March 18, 2011, at Whitten Timberlake Chapel with the Rev. Shirley Mercer officiating. Interment will follow in Fort Hill Memorial Park.

The family will receive friends from 7 to 8:30 p.m. today at the funeral home.