Rachel Bryant Hart

Rachel Hart died peacefully in her home in McLean, Virginia on December 2, 2015 of natural causes. We celebrate her life and remember her fondly as an engaged and loving mom to her children and their friends. She loved her life as a wife and mother. An accomplished baker, she was well known for her Christmas cookies, decorated birthday cakes, and pies. She was a talented seamstress, making outfits for herself, her children and their toys. Rachel also made curtains and recovered furniture. Rachel loved needle point, cross stitch, word find, romance novels, and paint-by-numbers, and knew all the names of all the plants you could point to. Rachel was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, on a tobacco farm as the middle child of nine. Eddie and Denise always said “we got the nice one for our mom.” But you didn’t want to mess with “Toughy,” a nickname she was given while working for the Department of the Army at the Pentagon. Rachel graduated from Conetoe High School, having played basketball as a point guard. She went to business school in Bennettsville, South Carolina, with Marie and they moved to Arlington, Virginia, living in Barcroft Apartments with her sister Evelyn. They all worked at the Pentagon. They all had a good time together. Rachel joined a Duck Pin Bowling League. And Kay, a work colleague and eventual roommate, gave them dance lessons. At a Friday night dance at Glen Echo in 1947 Rachel met Keith who asked for a dance. Having rebuffed him twice, she hid in the ladies room with her friends hoping he’d go away. True to Keith’s nature he waited outside the door and asked again. She agreed to the dance and a date to Luray Caverns in his red convertible. They were engaged in two months and married on April 10, 1948 at the Navy Chapel on Nebraska Avenue’s Naval Security Station. Rachel learned to be a good golfer to play with Keith even though she was never a fan of the sport. She did enjoy dancing, and she and Keith went out frequently. Rachel moved to Guam when Keith was stationed there and brought back their first cat, Blackie. When she returned to Bethesda, Denise was born and then Eddie, and a year later they were off to Honolulu for three and a half years. The family moved back to the East Coast in 1960 and got their second cat, Fluffy, in 1961 in Richmond. Rachel returned to work at the Defense General Supply Center and then worked for the FHA when they moved to Verona. They got their third cat, Martin, there. Rachel and Keith moved to McLean in 2002. Her beloved husband Keith died in 2008. Rachel is survived by her children, Denise of Arlington and Eddie and his wife Tish of Orlando; her grandson Jonathan and his wife Kara and their two boys, Mason and Dylan; her granddaughter, Katie, and her husband Destin and her son Donovan and daughter Scout; her foster granddaughter Cela Solis; her sisters, Marie, Lydia and her husband Norman, Carolyn and her husband James; and lots of cousins, nieces and nephews. One of the kindest, most thoughtful people we have ever known, she will be greatly missed by both her family and many friends.