Dr. Laura Hare

Dr. Laura Hare
(1/6/1906 – 5/25/2006)

Dr. Laura Hare was a medical doctor by profession and a naturalist and conservationist by avocation. Born in 1906, Hare was the youngest of the six children of Clinton L. and Marea Fletcher Hare and a great-granddaughter of Stoughton A. Fletcher, whose bank had loaned the Crown Hill Association the funds to make the original land purchases for Crown Hill Cemetery.

Hare graduated from Shortridge High School and earned a Baccalaureate Degree from DePauw University. Upon graduation, she taught biology for two years at Shortridge then went on to earn a PhD. in Entomology from the University of Chicago. A few years later, she enrolled at the Indiana University Medical School, specializing in Internal Medicine and going on to serve as a practicing physician for many years.

Ever present was her love for piano, music, china painting, animals, and gardening. Her gardens were filled with native flowers and trees, and she created a habitat for all kinds of animals. For many years, she would take trips to Shades State Park and the nearby Pine Hills Nature Preserve to hike and look for fossils with her dogs. Dr. Hare was a member of the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, the Nature Conservancy, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Indiana Medical Society. She supported her love for the outdoors through her philanthropy and established her legacy with The Laura Hare Charitable Trust, which preserved nearly 3,200 acres in Indiana between 2010-2019, with additional land preserved since. The mission of the Laura Hare Charitable Trust is to enhance Indiana’s natural environment through preservation and stewardship of ecologically significant natural areas and the promotion of environmental education, stewardship, and awareness initiatives.

Buried in Section 7, Lot 159, GPS (39.8215442, -86.1753010)