Olive Pearl (Hare) Stanford, a longtime resident of both Phoenix, Arizona, and Lawrence Kansas, died Saturday morning, January 7th, 2017 at age 100, after suffering a stroke New Year’s Day. She was with her daughter and her two grandsons at their home in Lawrence, her personality and dignity intact.
Olive was born July 7th, 1916, on a farm in Glasco, Kansas. She was the second child of Pearl William Hare and Mary Copper. Olive grew up in Toronto, Kansas, attending elementary and high school there. She went on to graduate from the University of Kansas in 1938 with degree in entomology. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta.
She met her husband, Sharon B. Stanford, the following year in Phoenix while visiting her brother, who was stationed there with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. They were married in Lawrence, Kansas, in September of 1940. They returned to build their adobe brick home together in Paradise Valley, Arizona, literally up from the ground under their feet, where they raised their daughter, Mary. In 1991, seventeen years after the death of her husband, she returned to Kansas to be closer to her daughter and family.
Olive was foremost a loving wife, mother, and grandmother. She is also remembered for her eye for architecture and her passion for historic preservation and adaptive reuse. In addition to Olive’s exuberant love of family gatherings and celebrations, her impressive collection of early American antique furniture, silverware and Delftware, and her enthusiasm for dressmaking and fine fabrics, she would most likely want to be remembered for her involvement in the preservation of historic buildings.
Most notable of her preservation efforts is the 1040 New Hampshire Professional Offices in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, across the street from the county courthouse. Originally an English Lutheran Church built in 1870 by John G. Haskell, it was in ruins and set for demolition. The structure was saved through the efforts of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, and Olive proposed and funded the effort to restore the building to its current incarnation. She personally planned its rehabilitation, insisting that the new construction within the nave did not physically engage the exterior walls or disrupt its Gothic windows, allowing a clear perception of the three dimensional qualities, materials, and details of the original construction while maximizing the space’s utility as modern offices. The project established important legal precedents for preservation in the state of Kansas. Governor Joan Finney oversaw its grand opening in November 1993. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and has been recognized with multiple preservation and architectural awards. Complete with its original spire and bell, the lawyers who continue to occupy the old church ring it every time they win a case.
Until January 1st of this year, Olive lived autonomously in her two story limestone farmhouse, now also pending registration on the National Register.
She is preceded in death by her parents, Pearl William Hare and Mary Copper, her brother Virgil H. Hare, her husband Sharon Stanford, who died March 3rd, 1974, and her son-in-law, Arthur “Tripp” Anderson, who died April 6th, 2010.
Olive is survived by her daughter, Mary Anderson, and her two grandsons, John and Alex. She is also survived by her cousins Troy Westby, Alberta Paramore, and William Hare, and her four nieces, Diane Stanford, Donnamae Quandt, Sandra Loeffler, Pam Smith, and Debiruth Stanford.
A private interment will take place on January 12 at 3PM at Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery, Phoenix, AZ. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Lawrence Preservation Alliance (www.lawrencepreservation.org).
