LUCIA WOODS LINDLEY

1937 - 2020

WOODS LINDLEY--Lucia. Lucia Woods Lindley died in New York City on December 14, 2020, from the effects of a stroke, complicated at the end by Covid-19. She had an exceptional life as a photographer and philanthropist. She was born in Chicago on October 5, 1937, the second daughter of Louise Brewer Woods and Frank H. Woods, Jr. Her brother, Brewer, predeceased her. She was survived by her husband, Daniel A. Lindley, who passed away on December 18, 2020. She is survived by her two sisters, Lisa and Amy Woods, her stepson Daniel Allen Lindley, III, and his children Hannah Alice Lindley and Ethan Ledyard Lindley, her stepdaughter Helen Stokes Lindley Kelly and her children Dylan Paul Hastings, Haley Helen Hastings, and Sophia Lucia Hastings, and six nieces and nephews. She attended Concord Academy and graduated from Sweet Briar College in 1959. She then studied interior design in New York City and London, and photography, in New York, with David Vestal, Dan Budnick, and Helen Buttfield. Willa Cather: A Pictorial Memoir, with photographs by Lucia Woods and text by Bernice Slote, was published by The University of Nebraska Press in 1973, and it remains in print. Lucia's photographs for the book, taken in Nebraska, New Mexico, Quebec, New York, and Pittsburgh, celebrate and deeply illuminate the various settings of Cather's life and her fiction. Lucia had one- person shows of her photographs at The Art Institute of Chicago, Princeton University, The Harold Washington Library in Chicago, and The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, as well as in London and Quebec. She lectured, with her photographs, at Cather seminars and symposia over many years. Her philanthropy included having been a "founding mother" of the Chicago Foundation for Women; she established the Sophia Fund in support of women's issues, now a part of both the Ms. Foundation for Women and the Chicago Foundation for Women, and she was honored for this by both organizations. Lucia was a trustee of the Woods Charitable Fund (Chicago) from 1980 to 1990, President of the fund from 1990 through 1993 (the first woman to hold that position) and Director Emeritus of the Woods Fund of Chicago from 1996. She also served on the board of trustees of the Goodman Theater (Chicago), the Committee on Photography of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Visiting Committee of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Foundation. She faithfully supported many other organizations and causes. In 1978 Lucia married Daniel Lindley, a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She thus acquired all at once, as she said, "a car, a house, a husband, and two children." She brought to her new family a dedication to the examined life. She was driven by her own exceptional standards of quality. Her devotion to the meaning of journey informed her life. She believed, with T.S. Eliot, that "We shall not cease from exploration," and she lived the truth of what Willa Cather wrote: "Seeking itself is the way." All of us who knew her will treasure our memories of that spirit in Lucia. Donations in her honor can be made to the Ms. Foundation for Women and the Chicago Foundation for Women. Details of a service at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City are to be determined.