AGNESE HAURY

HAURY--Agnese Nelms passed away on March 20, 2014, in Tucson, AZ, at the age of 90. Born in Houston, Texas, on May 17, 1923, she is preceded in death by her husband, twin sister, and brother. Survivors include a niece and nephews. Early in her life, Mrs. Haury acquired an interest in helping individuals struggling with language barriers to receive justice in the courtroom. She also assisted organizations and individuals working to effect social change by providing funding to expand influential ideas and programs. Mrs. Haury was educated at the College de Jeunes Filles in Fontainebleau, France, and at Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Conn. She received a B.A. degree in history from Bryn Mawr College in 1946. She was married to Manice deForest Lockwood III (1950-1976), Denver Lindley (1978-1982) and Emil W. Haury (1990-1992); all predeceased her. Mrs. Haury's professional career included work as an editor at the United Nations. While employed by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she traveled to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Libya, and Burma making surveys and writing treatises on economic and social problems in those countries as well as economic development possibilities. In 1964-1965 she processed and catalogued artifacts recovered from the Snaketown Archaeological Project in central Arizona, which was directed by Emil W. Haury. Through her work at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Mrs. Haury formed a lifelong friendship with its president, Alger Hiss. Over a 60-year period, Mrs. Haury supported a series of activities aimed at clearing Mr. Hiss of charges leveled against him by Whittaker Chambers and Richard Nixon. In honor of Mr. Hiss, she established the Alger Hiss Distinguished Professorship at Bard College and provided financial support for the Emergency Civil Liberties Foundation and The Nation Institute. She also provided funding to individuals engaged in legal research and writing about Mr. Hiss and supported the National Security Archive, an independent nonprofit repository of declassified U.S. government documents. She also helped establish New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War as well as the Alger Hiss Papers Project at NYU's Tamiment Library. Personal friends of Mrs. Haury speak of her intelligence and unpretentious nature. She rarely spent money on herself except to fill her home with beloved collections of Native American rugs, pottery, and artwork. Her true enthusiasm was always for people, and her philanthropy extended from the preservation of cultural artifacts to support of human rights for both immigrant and Native American populations. From 1981-1990 Mrs. Haury was president of the Agnese N. Lindley Foundation, which funded projects concerning social and humanitarian problems, civil and human rights issues, the arts, the environment, and scientific research. The foundation also supported journalism, civic affairs, and economic advancement in less-developed countries. More than 200 projects received funding through the foundation including the following: preservation of more than 100,000 photographs of the conflict in El Salvador, the start-up of an Inter-American Environmental Policy Center, a project to help increase the number of Indian groups gaining federal tribal recognition, and research on the rapidly disappearing Native American languages of Yaqui and Samish. The foundation also provided grants for archaeological excavations; scholarships in the fields of art conservation; and an intern program for The Nation magazine, which provided young journalists an opportunity to learn about political and social reporting. With her support, the University of Arizona established the Agnese N. Haury Institute of Court Interpretation (a certification program for teachers across the country who train court interpreters). Mrs. Haury also supported endowments for anthropology graduate students; dendrochronological research; the construction of the Agnese and Emil Haury Southwest Native Nations Pottery Vault; and the Bryant Bannister Tree-Ring Building, which houses the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and its irreplaceable collection of tree-ring specimens from around the world. The University of Arizona gave Mrs. Haury an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 1999 and a Citizen of the Year Award in 2001. In 2007 the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society gave her the Victor R. Stoner Award. In keeping with Mrs. Haury's lifelong use of her financial resources to support scholarly work and advance human rights on an international scale, her love of the Arizona-Sonoran desert region and its peoples, and her desire to address serious issues in a meaningful way, her estate will provide more than $50 million to the University of Arizona Foundation to create the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona and will fund other programs consistent with her philanthropic objectives.