John Hersey - Death in Key West

Death in Key West

A longtime resident of Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts – chronicled in his 1987 work Blues – John Hersey died at his winter home in Key West, Florida, on March 24, 1993 at the compound he and his wife shared with his friend, writer Ralph Ellison. Hersey's death was front-page news in the following day's New York Times. The writer was buried near his home on Martha's Vineyard. He was survived by his second wife, Barbara (the former wife of Hersey's colleague at The New Yorker, artist Charles Addams, and the model for Morticia Addams), Hersey's five children, one of whom is the composer and musician Baird Hersey, and six grandchildren. Barbara Hersey died on Martha's Vineyard 14 years later on August 16, 2007.

Read more about this topic:  John Hersey

Famous quotes containing the words death, key and/or west:

    Of Heaven of Hell I have no power to sing,
    I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
    Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
    Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
    William Morris (1834–1896)

    The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is—Imbecility: imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments: victims of gravity, customs and fear. This gives force to the strong,—that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
    —Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)