They called her “Neat” because her name was Juanita but in retrospect, it was more than a nickname for Juanita Hearst, it was a way of life, her friends and family said.
“Come to think of it, she was very neat,” said her daughter, LaShawn "LuLu" Hearst-Benham. “She liked things a certain way and in their place.”
There were rules of order around the house, Mrs. Hearst-Benham said. Among them, there were to be no dirty dishes in the sink at night and you used only one drinking cup a day.
"You weren't going to mess up a bunch of dishes around here," she said. "Not on her watch."
Mrs. Hearst’s old roommate, Cleater Webb, echoed similar sentiments.
“She probably did more of the cleaning and whatnot that I did,” she said with a hearty laugh. “Well, I kept my bedroom door closed and she didn’t, let me put it like that.”
Known as a woman with a kind smile and a loving heart, Mrs. Hearst would take care of others before she would tend to herself, her family said.
"When she'd cook, and she could cook, but when she did, if you happened to come by you could eat too," Ms. Webb said. "That was just her way."
“Even while she was sick, we had a classmate who had cancer too, and she’d call and talk to her, to see how she was doing,” said Verbon L. Hearst, her husband of almost 28 years. “She was really just a caring person.”
Juanita Lovingood Hearst was a “tough cookie,” as she battled lung cancer for the past year and a half, her daughter said. Mrs. Hearst, who lived in Union City, died Thursday at her daughter’s home in College Park of complications associated with the cancer. She was 67. A funeral service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel of Gus Thornhill’s Funeral Home. Burial will immediately follow at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Gus Thornhill’s is in charge of arrangements.
Mrs. Hearst graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta. She went on to a local business school and earned an associates degree, her daughter said, which allowed her to work for the U.S. Postal Service for more than 35 years as a payroll clerk. She retired in 2008, Mrs. Hearst-Benham said.
“She loved people and that’s why she loved being a payroll clerk,” Mrs. Hearst-Benham said of her mother. “And if you're messing with people’s money, you’ve almost got to love people because you see them and talk to the everyday.”
Ms. Webb said her old roommate was “very receptive to meeting new people.”
“People just gravitated to her,” Ms. Webb said, “And you could tell how much she enjoyed talking to them.”
In addition to her husband and her daughter, Mrs. Hearst is survived by two sons, Terry Hall of Fairburn and Christopher Hearst of Union City; three grandchildren; a twin brother, Warren “Bud” Lovingood of Stone Mountain and a sister, Lazolia King of Atlanta.
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