Joan Monaghan Hart

February 7, 1931 – October 18, 2019 Joan Marie Monaghan Hart -mother of eight children, social activist, student and child advocate and the only non-lawyer to ever receive the Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of New Mexico Law School -- died in Albuquerque on Friday, October 18, 2019. She was 88 and passed away after a period of illness surrounded in her home by more than 40 of her family members. Over many decades, alongside her husband, Fred Hart, the former Dean of the University of New Mexico Law School, Joan’s support and advocacy for students, especially for Native American students from New Mexico Indian tribes, helped change the face of legal education in the state.

Joan Marie Monaghan Hart was born February 7, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York, the oldest of two children of William Monaghan, a fire boat Captain for the City of New York and Margaret Ryan. She attended Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania on full scholarship and graduated first in her class in 1953. She was also president of the student body. Upon graduation, she accepted a graduate fellowship at Georgetown University, and received her Master of Arts degree in 1955. She moved to Albuquerque in 1966 with her husband Fred, then a professor of law at Boston College on a sabbatical to the University of New Mexico Law School. They fell in love with the state and never left, with Fred taking a permanent appointment as a law school professor.

Joan deeply impacted every community she touched and was deeply loved and respected. She was the first Court Appointed Special Advocate in New Mexico and remained a CASA volunteer for many years, providing a voice to vulnerable children. In 1992 Joan was selected as the national outstanding CASA volunteer of the year. She was on the Board of Directors of PB&J Family Services. She was active in the Georgetown undergraduate admissions program, serving on the Board of Directors and heading the alumni interviewing process in New Mexico. Joan was elected to Georgetown’s Board of Governors, and in 2001 Joan received the John Carroll Award, given to only three or four alumni each year, recognizing her as one of the University’s outstanding alumni.

A pacifist, Joan served on the New Mexico Draft Board to protect those who had a moral objection to war. Recognizing the plight of persecuted citizens in El Salvador in the 1980s, Joan made her home into a stop on the "underground railroad" that helped refugees find sanctuary in the United States.

She was active at the University of New Mexico Law School in many ways, advocating for a diverse and inclusive study body and perhaps most importantly by making every law student she encountered feel cared for (and inviting them all to dinner at her house). For her many contributions to the law school, Joan received the Law School Alumni Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2014.

With her ability and energy she could have done anything she wanted, but she chose raising a family as her vocation and, in this, she excelled beyond all her other accomplishments. She was the mother of eight children. Many of the skills she taught her children (hard work, determination, how to write, how to think critically) prepared them for academic success and to be citizens of the world. But more importantly, Joan taught her children how to love. She comforted them, encouraged them, talked to them, listened to them, laughed with them. Loved them. She made each of her children believe that he or she was Joan’s favorite. In her own inimitable way she made them see how important it was to be friends and to love one another.

Joan also set an example for her children in actively loving others - the poor, the vulnerable, the refugee – to see others not as others but as brothers and sisters. She made it clear that love was a choice - a matter of will.

During her final days all of her family came home and she was surrounded by her eight children, their spouses, twenty grandchildren and her two great grandchildren. They wanted to show their love for her and feel her love for all of them, passing time talking, playing games, sharing laughter and tears. She knew they were all here to be with her and share the abundant love that was her gift to her family and community.

She was predeceased by her parents, Margaret Ryan Monaghan and William Anthony Monaghan and by her brother William Monaghan. She is survived by her husband, Fred Hart, her eight children and their spouses: Joan Marie Hart and Reg Fitz, Ellen Hart and her husband Rob Woodruff, Christiane and her husband Carlton Cuse, F. Michael and his wife Alisa Hart, Margaret and her husband Eric Stebbins, Andrew Hart and Tracy Brooks, Brigid and her husband George Ovitt, Patrick and his wife Joanna Hart, twenty grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

A funeral mass will be held Monday, October 21st 10:00am at St. Therese Catholic Church, 300 Mildred Ave NW.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to Marywood University www.Marywood.edu