Heidi Hall

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Heidi Nieland Hall, 49, of Madison, Tennessee, was born Dec. 18, 1969, in Wilmington, Delaware, and died Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, in Nashville, due to metastatic colorectal cancer.

After an upbringing in Sikeston, Missouri, Hall graduated from Sikeston High School and began her career in the newspaper industry, first with the weekly Democrat Advertiser in Sikeston, then as a reporter at the Standard Democrat. She later twice worked at the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau, first as a reporter from 1994 to 1996, then as managing editor from 2000 to 2003. Her lighthearted "Stranger Than Fiction" column appeared weekly in the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers, and it earned a devoted audience until it ended in late 2005 after almost 11 years.

Her newspaper career culminated with a role as a team leader for religion and general assignment news at The Tennessean in Nashville.

She prided herself on accuracy and diverse representation of voices in the pages of local newspapers and demonstrated that in her personal life as well. She later left the newspaper business to work in communications for Vanderbilt University, with clients who included researchers in the School of Engineering and the natural sciences. The university will launch the Heidi Hall Internship for Science Communications in 2020.

Heidi was a member of Woodland Presbyterian Church in East Nashville and served as elder emerita.

She married Jamie Hall in Cape Girardeau in 1995, divorcing in 2006; they remained lifelong friends. She married Jeffrey Joseph on Nov. 2, 2008, on Honeymoon Island, Florida, and he remained her beloved and loyal partner.

Hall was the daughter of the late George Travis Nieland and of Claudia Dunne Haley and Randy Haley, her stepfather, who survive of Cape Girardeau. Other survivors include her brother and sister-in-law, Mark Haley and Ashley Gist of Waterloo, Iowa, and their two sons; three sisters; and a host of beloved friends who formed her family.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Oct. 13 at Woodland Presbyterian Church, 211 N. 11th St., in Nashville, with the Rev. Meredith Cox officiating.