Ardelia Ripley Hall (1899 - 1979)

Born 4 Dec 1899 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Ancestors

Died 4 Sep 1979 at age 79 in Greenfield, Massachusetts, USA

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Biography

Ardelia Ripley Hall "was a cultural affairs officer at the United States Department of State from 1946 to 1964, where she specialized in post-World War II restitution of Nazi-looted art." ^[1]

Ardelia Ripley Hall born 4 December 1899, daughter of Willard Francis Hall, a machinist and policeman, and Lura Sawin Hall, a school teacher, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. ^[2]

Willard F. Hall 48 yrs, shoe machine stitcher, wife Lura 35 yrs, mother of 2, Ardelia R. 10 yrs, Fannie A. 6 yrs, foster child Mary E. Johnston 11 yrs, Florence A. Johnston 6 yrs, resided in 1910 in Cohasset, Norfolk, Massachusetts, ^[3]

" In June 1946, she received the files of the recently-disbanded Roberts Commission, a wartime American organization that laid down the framework for American attempts to locate, recover, and return looted works of art in Europe and prevent their entry into the United States. Overnight, she became the point person on art restitution in the US government. Ardelia Hall managed to keep the issue of art restitution alive while most politicians and career government officials joined the increasingly fractious choruses of the Cold War. In retrospect, Ardelia Hall stands out as one of the few champions of the rights of Holocaust victims to reclaim their lost possessions and perhaps their only voice within the US government." ^[4]

Ardelia Ripley Hall died 4 Sep 1979 at Greenfield, Massachusetts,

Burial Mayflower Cemetery Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardelia_Ripley_Hall
2. ↑ "Massachusetts Births, 1841-1915," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6XYS-N93?cc=1536925&wc=M61J-5Z9%3A76889101 : 1 March 2016), 004341229 > image 98 of 436; Massachusetts Archives, Boston.
3. ↑ "United States Census, 1910", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2K9-RDS : Thu Oct 05 03:01:46 UTC 2023), Entry for William F Hall and Lura E Hall, 1910.
4. ↑ plundered art a perspective from the Holocaust Art Restitution Project https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2011/03/ardelia-hall.html
5. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/208386742/ardelia-ripley-hall

• “ARDELIA HALL COLLECTION” United States National Archives https://www.archives.gov/files/research/microfilm/m1941.pdf

• German Assets In Italy: Ardelia Hall Visit, 1952 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74121162

• searchfor www.dfs.ny.gov/consumer/holocaust/history_art_looting_restitution/loot_res_allies_roberts_mfa_a_ardelia.htm

• https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/hall-ardelia-r.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/arts/design/not-all-monuments-men-were-men.html