Harriet “Hatty” Walker Fitts, 77, died June 29, 2017 at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston from complications following peritonitis and a long illness.
She was the wife of Bill Fitts of Provincetown.
Hatty was born in 1940 in New York City to Ione Gaul Walker and Hudson D. Walker. She was raised in Forest Hills, NY and graduated from Kew Forest High School before attending the University of Colorado in Boulder where she studied mathematics and accounting.
In college she met and married Mike Heron and they had three sons, Jim, Bruce and Will. They lived in Denver until 1971 and then moved to Medford Lakes, N.J. for 17 years.
In the late ‘80s, she divorced and returned to Provincetown. She and Bill Fitts had been childhood sweethearts in Queens and even been engaged before each moved on to different life paths. They rediscovered each other later in life and married. Bill’s daughter Eliza from his earlier marriage also became part of the extended Walker/Heron/Fitts family.
Hatty and Bill lived on Nelson Avenue in an eclectic, art-driven house that Bill built for them. It is wood paneled with sweeping beams, a Conrad Malicoat fireplace curves toward the ceiling and every inch is filled with art books and projects they each were working on.
Throughout her life, Hatty summered in Provincetown, first with her parents and sisters, Berta B. Walker and Louise Walker Davy, then as an adult. Her grandparents had also summered here beginning in 1916. Hatty’s roots ran deep and wide here at the end of the Cape where she lived for the final three decades of her life. Her family heritage also included extensive philanthropic support of the arts and environment dating back to her great grandfather T. B. Walker who helped begin the Minneapolis Public Library and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Locally, Hatty’s parents were instrumental in the creation of the Fine Arts Work Center, one of the foremost arts residency programs in the country in 1968. Bill had coincidentally been among the first fellows at FAWC. Like her parents and sister Berta before her, Hatty took a hands-on interest in FAWC and gave generously of her time and expertise, serving as the president of the board or co-chair for many years. She was always active on the annual FAWC auction, celebrating its 41st year this August, its first year without her at the helm. FAWC board co-chair Marty Davis said Hatty’s accounting background meant she never forgot the bottom line but also, “She had an indomitable spirit. It’s as if she had a little girl inside of her, a child that viewed the world with pleasure and the thought that anything was possible.” FAWC executive director Michael Roberts said, “She lived her life surrounded by art and artists and worked tirelessly for more than 40 years to sustain the ideal of a living community with the arts at the center.” About her parents, he added that the Work Center would never have existed without them and “would not have survived and flourished as it has without Hatty and her family.”
She was also active throughout her life in several of the other philanthropic family foundations and in local organizations like school boards and junior women’s clubs in Colorado, New Jersey and Massachusetts. She served on Provincetown’s Finance Committee and the boards of the Peaked Hill Trust and the Outer Cape Artists in Residency Consortium on the Cape.
It was through Bill that Hatty became active with the Peaked Hill Trust that manages some of the dune shacks in the Cape Cod National Seashore and she and Bill frequently spent time at Euphoria, a remote, rustic shack on the windswept dunes. Through her, Bill became more active at FAWC again, taking print workshops and building tables and storage units for the classrooms.
Her son Jim said she didn’t want to be thought of as a leader though those who worked with her often saw her that way. She wanted to be recalled as a volunteer. And she was that person behind the scenes that could be counted on to make sure things got done, right.
Hatty’s sister Berta describes her as the eldest and somewhat serious sister and in many ways, “the mother of us all.” Hatty collected her grandmother’s old country holiday recipes and could be counted on to make them, including the raisin-filled Christmas donuts. For years the family gathered at the house on Nelson Avenue for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
And more than a generation of Provincetown children looked forward to Halloween and running up to Hatty’s door to yell “Trick or Treat.” She met them at the door wearing a tall witches hat and handed each child a very large cookie shaped like a bat, cat or ghost that she and her son Bruce had baked and hand decorated. She always made at least 200 and they were always gone long before the children stopped knocking. They called her the Cookie Lady of Nelson Avenue.
She taught many Provincetown youngsters at the town’s West End Racing Club how to swim. She had taken part in synchronized swimming in college and if it had been an Olympic sport then as it is now, her sister says that Hatty would have been an Olympian. Some describe Hatty as a mermaid because of her love of swimming. Dialysis protocols kept her out of the water in her latter years, but she did not complain.
Hatty was also an artist, a photographer who always had her camera with her, though she would not call herself an artist. In addition to all her volunteer work, she enjoyed cooking, being in nature with her husband, Bill, and she passionately loved her children.
She inspired devotion in all the people she met and worked with. The words indomitable and indefatigable show up in almost everyone’s description. Hatty brought a level of attention and precision to everything she undertook. She was unstinting with her time and her energy despite suffering for many years with a painful chronic illness. She had a terrific sense of humor and was also generous to a fault in her dealings with others. People wanted to be near her when she was in the room or leading a meeting. She made everyone feel good.
Hatty is survived by her husband, Bill Fitts of Provincetown; sons Jim Heron (wife Janet, children Jillian and Jacob) of Medford, N.J., Will Heron (children Kiah and Elan) of Truro, and Bruce Heron of Provincetown; a stepdaughter Eliza Fitts of Eastham, Mass.; and sisters Berta B. Walker of Provincetown and Louise Walker Davy (daughter Anna) of California.
Memorial donations may be made to the Fine Arts Work Center, 24 Pearl St., or the Peaked Hill Trust, PO Box 1705, both of Provincetown, MA 02657.
A celebration of Hatty’s life is planned for mid August at a date, time and place to be determined.