Joan Hardy Southern

LIVERMORE FALLS – Joan Hardy Southern, 89, formerly of Livermore Falls, passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, under the loving care of her daughter and son-in-law at their home in Washington state.

She was born Dec. 28, 1933, in Punta Arenas, Chile, the daughter of Herbert A. Hardy and Jessie M.T. (Stewart) Hardy. Totally blind since her late teens, Joan had the life altering opportunity to meet and translate for Helen Keller during Miss Keller’s visit to her school in South America in 1953. That meeting facilitated Joan’s enrollment at Perkins School in Watertown, Massachusetts the following year, where she trained as a Dictaphone operator. Joan worked in that field at Price Waterhouse in Santiago as well as Royal Globe Insurance in Boston. On Sept. 30, 1967, she married her loving husband of 50 years, the late Charles “Donald” Southern.

In her retirement years, Joan regularly gave inspiring presentations at local schools about living with blindness. She was later employed as a Migrant Health Outreach Worker for the Rural Community Action Ministry in Leeds, Maine.

Joan was an accomplished knitter and an avid reader of talking books provided by the National Library Service.

She is survived by her daughters, Jessica Whitney of Washington and Lisa Darnell of Virginia; her stepdaughter Lyn Southern, and her stepsons Ronald Southern, Charles Southern, and Walter Southern, all of Massachusetts; as well as 12 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.