Shelby Hearon

1931 - 2016

Shelby Hearon

• Burlington

Shelby Hearon died at home in Burlington, Vermont on December 10, 2016. Shelby was born Evelyn Shelby Reed in 1931 in Marion, Kentucky. In 1947, she moved to Austin, Texas. In Austin, she attended the University of Texas at Austin, married her high school sweetheart, Robert J. Hearon, Jr., and raised a family. She was active in the community, serving terms as president of both the Junior League and Planned Parenthood. Shelby got up at 5 every morning to write, as it was her secret dream to publish a novel. In 1967, her first novel, "Armadillo in the Grass", was accepted by Knopf. In 1981, she moved to New York City to work full time as a novelist. In 1995, she moved to Burlington, Vermont, to marry Bill Halpern, a scientist and inventor. After Bill's death in 2008, Shelby remained in their Burlington home, as she had come to love Vermont.

Hearon received the Texas Institute of Letters Award twice, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Texas Book Festival. She was awarded fiction fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Five of her short stories were awarded NEA/PEN short story prizes, and her novel "Owning Jolene" won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award. She published 17 novels in all, and her papers are collected at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Research Library. In 1993 she won a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas.

In addition to being a prolific and celebrated author, Shelby Hearon was, to those who knew her, nothing less than a force of nature. Born in a time when women were neither expected nor encouraged to have a meaningful career outside the home, Shelby was a continual source of inspiration to her daughter and granddaughter, and to the many writing students she taught and mentored. She was for them the model of what it means to be a strong and independent woman.

In keeping with her feisty and autonomous nature, she passed away peacefully in her own home, and on her own terms, writing, getting her hair done regularly, and taking care of her home and herself, up until the very end. She was a role model in death as well, showing us how to die with grace and dignity, passionately loving her life while accepting impending death.

She is survived by her sisters, Fran Reed, Susan Reed Smith (and husband Tommy), and Linda Reed Sanford (and husband Graham Chell); children, Anne Shelby (Hearon) Rambo (and husband Irving Rosenbaum), and Robert Reed Hearon; and granddaughter Rachel Shelby Rambo. Bill Halpern's children were also her family, and she is survived as well by Alex and Liz Halpern (and children Isabelle and Myles), and Russ Halpern (and children McKinley and Sebastian). While her friends in Texas, New York, and Vermont are too numerous to name, special mention should be made of Jeanne Plo, Rosemary Bevans, and Stacey Hamblett, who helped her maintain her independence in Vermont, and Texas friends Val Dunman and Ann Rivers, who were with her through all her life changes.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to the Vermont Audubon Society vt.audubon.org to honor Shelby's love of Vermont wildlife, which brought her such joy every day when she would toss out food for the crows, squirrels, and possums in her backyard. A celebration of her life will be held in Burlington in early January, and in Texas later the same month.

Visit burlingtonfreepress.com/obituaries to Express condolences and sign the guest book.