Heidi Hall

Heidi Nieland Hall, 49, of Madison was born Dec. 18, 1969, in Wilmington, Del., and died Sept. 25, 2019, in Nashville, Tenn., due to metastatic colorectal cancer.After an upbringing in Sikeston, Mo., Hall rose through the newspaper industry, beginning her career with the weekly Democrat Advertiser in Sikeston, spending much of it at newspapers across Florida and ending it as a team leader for religion and general assignment 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.She was a member of Woodland Presbyterian Church in East Nashville and served as elder emerita.She first married Jamie Hall in Cape Girardeau, Mo., in 1995, divorcing in 2006. They remained lifelong friends. She married Jeffrey Joseph on Nov. 2, 2008, on Honeymoon Island, Fla., 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, Mo. 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. on Sunday, Oct. 13, at Woodland Presbyterian Church, 211 N. 11th St., Nashville, with the Rev. Meredith Cox officiating.