March 28, 2024
Annapolis, US 51 F

Hospice of the Chesapeake dedicates the Lynne G. Fare Art Nook

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Lynne G Fare Art Nook
From left, Lynne Fare’s children Heather Houghton, and Todd and Travis Fare, and her husband, Fred Fare, stand next to the collage featured in the Lynne G. Fare Art Nook in the Rebecca Fortney Inpatient Care Center in Pasadena. Heather created the collage to represent the work Lynne did as a hospice and home care nurse. Photo by Elyzabeth Marcussen, Hospice of the Chesapeake

In 1989, Lynne Gail Fare was part of a small staff of nurses who worked with Arundel Hospice, which would later become Hospice of the Chesapeake. Known for her dedication and commitment to her patients, she was the kind of nurse who literally would walk a mile through 2 feet of snow on an unplowed road to get to her patients.

The staff of Hospice of the Chesapeake recently had the honor of being able to give that same level of care back to Fare and her family. As she entered the end stages of cancer of the liver, she was admitted to the nonprofit’s Rebecca Fortney Inpatient Care Center in Pasadena. She died there Sept. 26, surrounded by her family. She was 73.

At one point in her long career as a nurse, Lynne asked her daughter, Heather Houghton, for a big favor. Heather was quite fond of creating collages out of pictures and print media and Lynne wanted her to create one depicting hospice, home care and caregivers that she could hang at the nonprofit’s building. The finished product is about 36-by-30-inches in size and includes pictures of Lynne and her own family.

As Heather and Fred were going through Lynne’s things, they came across the large, framed work and wondered, “What are we going to do with this collage?”

They decided to give it along with a generous memorial donation to Hospice of the Chesapeake. On Saturday, Oct. 22, family and friends gathered to dedicate the Lynne G. Fare Art Nook, where the collage is prominently featured, in the inpatient care center. It is a fitting tribute considering she was both an artist and a nurse. It is yet another way for Lynne to give back to the legacy she helped to create in Anne Arundel County as a home care professional.

Fare’s experience with hospice was part of a long and storied career as a nurse that began in Minneapolis after she earned her registered nurse diploma from the University of Minnesota. It was while she was attending the nursing program that she met her husband, Fred Fare, who was in basic training at Naval Station Great Lakes. They were on a double blind date. “Lynne was taller than her roommate and so she was matched up with my friend who was taller than me,” Fred said. “But at the end of the date, it was me that she left with.”

Her love for nursing was matched by a love for the arts. After graduating, she worked at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in the labor and delivery unit while she attended Kansas University as a drawing and painting major in Fine Arts.

When Fred and she started their family, she took time off from nursing to give that same driven dedication to her children and husband – she was a team mom, a Cub Scout and Girl Scout leader, a Navy Wives Club leader and even served as the Ombudsman for the Gold Crew of the USS George C. Marshall during Fred’s command tour.

When her three children Heather, Todd and Travis were all in grade school, she returned to nursing part-time at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut, until Fred retired from the Navy in 1986. That’s when they moved to Severna Park. Lynne continued her career, working in home care at Anne Arundel Medical Center and the former North Arundel Hospital and as one of the first nurses on staff with Arundel Hospice before becoming a Home Care Nurse Manager. Other career highlights include earning her master’s degree in the RN to Masters program at the University of Maryland and serving as Clinical Director at Hopkins ElderPlus, Johns Hopkins University Bayview in Baltimore.

The art nook named for Fare is situated between the inpatient care center’s Angel Room, where inpatient care center staff take their breaks, and the Family Room where patients’ family and friends gather. Its positioning is a good representation of how Fare lived her life – a wonderful combination of loyal friend and colleague, dedicated nurse and loving wife and mother.

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