Elizabeth Frances Hearn

Elizabeth Frances Hearn was born in Hartford, Conn, the daughter of William John Hearn and Alice Moran Riley. She came to Pittsfield as a child and graduated in 1938 from Pittsfield High School, having served as Class Treasurer for three years. Liz received her Bachelor Degree in Political Science and Government from Smith College in 1942 and her Master’s in Education Degree from the University of Hartford in 1959. Miss Hearn worked for a number of years in Hartford, Conn. with American Airlines, retiring as Manager of Passenger Sales and Services. On her return to Pittsfield in 1960, Liz joined the Pittsfield School Department. She was a guidance counselor and history teacher at Taconic and Pittsfield High Schools, a Parent-School Coordinator and Counselor in the Summer School Programs, and a teacher of illiterate adults in the Evening School. She was a former officer of both the Pittsfield Teachers’ Association and the Berkshire County Guidance Association and a former member of the Pittsfield Scholarship Committee. She retired from the Pittsfield School District in 1985. Miss Hearn had a life-long attachment to the people and institutions of Pittsfield and Berkshire County. Beyond her work as an educator in the public schools, she was a Trustee Emeritus of the Berkshire Athenaeum, having served as Clerk of the Board for over thirty years. Miss Hearn also served on the boards of the Berkshire Center for Families and Children, the former Pittsfield School of Practical Nursing, the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum, the Smith Club of Berkshire County, and Pittsfield Beautiful, and was a member of the founding board of the Early Child Development Center. She served as a volunteer worker for Hancock Shaker Village, the Tanglewood Visitors Center, the Berkshire Historical Society, and St. Joseph’s Kitchen. Miss Hearn was a communicant of the former St. Teresa’s Church in Pittsfield. She moved to the Kimball Farms Life Care Community in Lenox in 2006, and enjoyed spending the last decade of her life there. Miss Hearn was predeceased by her sister, Jane Ellen Hearn. She is survived by her brother William John Hearn and his wife Dianne Battles Hearn of Duxbury, Mass., her niece Ellen Hearn Parker and her husband Timothy Lewis Parker of Saratoga Springs, Utah, her niece Amy Hearn Duke of Arlington, Mass and her nephew William John Hearn III and his wife Leesa Meadows Hearn of Goshen, New York, and a number of great-nieces and nephews. Funeral Notice: Funeral services for Mrs. Elizabeth Frances Hearn will be Friday, September 22, 2017 at 11 a.m. at the Dwyer Funeral Home, 776 North St., Pittsfield, MA. Burial will follow in Cedar Park Cemetery in Hudson, NY. There will be a half an hour of visitation, prior to the service, from 1030 to 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Berkshire Athenaeum, care of the Dwyer Funeral Home in her memory.

Elizabeth Frances Hearn

May 23, 1920 - August 27, 2017