Sunday, August 12, 2007

Ida Hurt 1931-2007

Ida Marie Hurt, 75, of Baton Rouge died Sunday, August 12, at the Ollie Steele Burden Manor on Essen Lane.

Hurt was born October 1, 1931, in Albany, Georgia, to forester Henry David Story and Marie Agnus Story. Hurt moved with her family to Amite, Louisiana, as a young girl and later to Baton Rouge where she would remain. The former Ida Story married William “Bill” Hurt of Amite in 1953 and did not remarry after Bill’s death in 1978. The couple had no children.

Hurt received one of the first degrees in medical technology from Southeastern Louisiana University (1955) and worked in that field almost 50 years, witnessing its evolution from manual laboratory procedure to sophisticated computerized analysis. Hurt’s unusual education, pioneering career and independence after the death of her husband exemplify the maverick character so familiar to her friends.

Ida Hurt was a lifelong enthusiast of outdoor pursuits. As a child she shagged downed birds and squirrels for her father and handled his dogs on midnight hunts for opossum and raccoon. She later joined her husband at deer camp, enduring the ribbing of his friends and drinking Scotch; she killed her first deer there and silenced the doubters. In the last decade of her life, Hurt became an aficionado of the art of falconry, devoting every Saturday to flushing game for a friend’s trained hawks and cleaning the kills.

Hurt is survived by her pampered parrots, Corky and Chico, whom she called her “children”; by her brother, Dave, of Fitzgerald, Georgia; her nephew, Dave, also of Fitzgerald, GA; her nieces, Susan and Kelly, of Homerville, GA and Oceanside, CA, respectively; and by her circle of friends and admirers, including Cheri, Jessica, Karen and Matt. She is preceded in death by her husband, Bill, and her little fat dog, Dingo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Condolences, Matt. I only met Ida through the pages of In Season, but that's enough to know that she must have been -- to use a word that I ordinarily wouldn't, but seems appropriate for a woman of that generation who lived life on her own terms -- a great old broad.

Anonymous said...

She might have said something similar, Mark. Or worse.

But she was never an easy person to categorize. As Gregg said, "Have a good look cause they're not making any more like 'em."

Matt