Sallie Hays Hallett

Sallie Hays Hallett, former Little Rock resident and former wife of the late Associate Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Steele Hays, died Sunday in Kilmarnock, Virginia. Mrs. Hallett, 90, was the wife of Ralph Hallett Jr. of Irvington, Va. She grew up in St. Louis, Mo., the daughter of Irvin Tucker Brown and Blanche Bales Brown. She graduated from Duke University and worked in Washington, D.C., where she met and married Mr. Hays. They moved to Little Rock in 1953 and she lived in Little Rock until 1986, when she returned to Washington, D.C. She married Mr. Hallett in 1990. Mrs. Hallett was active in the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools during the Little Rock school crisis in the 1950s. She was a staff member of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention 1969-70. She was a longtime member of Little Rock's Second Presbyterian Church, and an avid conservationist. In addition to her husband, she is survived by three children: Steele Hays (Melody) of Washington, D.C.; Sarah Facciobene (Carmen) of Potomac, Md., and Melissa Licon (Val) of Reno, Nev., and seven grandchildren.