Dabney Adams Hart

1926 - 2015

HART, Dabney Adams DABNEY ADAMS HART 1926 - 2015 Dabney Adams Hart, a resident of Canterbury Court in Atlanta, died peacefully at her home on April 20, 2015. Born Lida Dabney Adams on October 15, 1926 in Nashville, Tennessee, she was the daughter of Howell Elliott Adams, Sr. and Crenshaw Waller Adams. The family lived briefly in Oklahoma City, OK and then Memphis, TN and Asheville, NC. In 1944 she was awarded a scholarship by the Presbyterian Church (US) that could be used to attend a Presbyterian college in the South. She chose Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA where she was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with High Honor in 1948. She was elected President of her Freshman Class and in her senior year Class President for Life. She earned a Master's Degree in English Literature from Vanderbilt University in 1949. After teaching for three years at Florida State University, she taught at the University of Wisconsin, and began work on her Ph.D. focusing on C. S. Lewis. She spent a year at the University of London on a Fulbright Scholarship and had an opportunity to interview Dr. Lewis at his home in Oxford. Her dissertation was the first written on Lewis and for years its accompanying bibliography was recognized as the most thorough available compilation of Lewis's writings. Throughout her career she was widely recognized as a leading Lewis scholar, lecturing across the United States and frequently speaking to church and community groups in Georgia and beyond. Her book, Through the Open Door, A New Look at C. S. Lewis, was published in 1984. Dabney married Michael Hart, an English school-master, in 1956 and lived in the UK for nineteen years. After their divorce she moved to Atlanta and joined the faculty of Georgia State University, teaching in the Department of English until her retirement in 1993. She served as Director of the Writing Center and as Chair of the Sophomore Curriculum Committee, and introduced an upper level course on The Bible as Literature. The annual award for the best essay by a sophomore is named in her honor. For several years she graded Advanced Placement English tests for the College Board in Princeton, NJ. A member of The Cathedral of St. Philip, Dabney served two terms on the Chapter and was elected as a lay delegate to the Diocesan Council. She volunteered as a board member and behind the counter at the Cathedral Book Store. She was a member of The St. Elizabeth's Guild and The Community of the Cross of Nails and was a founding member of the first anti-racism committee of the Diocese of Atlanta. She was a companion in The Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross and made annual trips to volunteer in the library at Adelynrood, the society's retreat center in Byfield, MA. Dabney volunteered as a reader for the blind at the Georgia Radio Reading Service until her eyesight, diminished by macular degeneration, no longer allowed it. In 2003 the Dabney Adams Hart Distinguished Visiting Humanities Professorship was established at Agnes Scott in recognition of her life's work. Dabney was active and beloved in the summer community at Beersheba Springs, TN where her family has vacationed for over 140 years. Dabney was predeceased by her niece Madeline Dabney Adams, and is survived by her two brothers, Howell E. Adams, Jr. (Madeline) of Beersheba Springs, TN and Atlanta, and Thomas E. Adams, Sr. (Anita) of Atlanta; by seven nieces and nephews, Edith Adams Allison (Don) of Amherst, MA, Elizabeth Crenshaw Adams (Alex Sierck) of Brooklyn, NY, John B. Adams (Maggie) of Decatur, GA, and Howell E. Adams, III (Elizabeth), John R. Adams, Susan Adams Iwanicki (Todd) and Thomas E. Adams, Jr. (Melissa), all of Atlanta; by seventeen great-nieces and nephews, by eight godchildren, and by numerous cousins in her extended family. A memorial service will be held at 10:00AM on May 1, 2015 at the Cathedral of St. Philip. In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations could be made to The Cathedral of St. Philip, 2744 Peachtree Road NW, Atlanta, GA 30305; or to Agnes Scott College, 141 East College Street, Decatur, GA 30030; or to Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic, Box 112, Beersheba Springs, TN 37305.