Anne B., also known as Nancy, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1937. Anne’s mother wanted to name her Nan when she was born, but the Catholic Church would not allow it since it was not a saint’s name. Therefore, she was named Anne, but her mother always called her Nan instead. People eventually started calling her Nancy and it stuck!
Nancy lived in the Boston area until her pre-teen years when her family moved to Manhattan. She attended an all-girls school for high school and still has lifelong friends from those days. She had one older brother, John, and one younger brother, David.
Nancy met her husband Edwin, also known as Tim, when they were set up on a blind date while in college. She was skeptical of Tim at first but decided to give him another chance! The two married in 1960 and had four children. They lived in Providence, Philadelphia, and eventually Indiana for Tim’s job. As a born and bred East Coast girl, Nancy was not terribly happy to move to the Midwest! However, she embraced the neighborhood they lived in and appreciated the midwestern values, new friends, and the wonderful place it was to raise a family.
Nancy obtained her teaching degree while in Indiana and started teaching when her youngest daughter started elementary school. Nancy began teaching elementary school and then moved to middle school, where she spent most of her career. In 1985, the family moved back East and settled in Weston, Connecticut. Nancy taught at New Canaan Country Day School and then Ridgefield Academy before retiring in 2002 to their summer place in Westport Point, Massachusetts. Sadly, Tim passed away in December 2002. Although she was truly devastated, Nancy persevered and got involved with the community. She even raised funds and brought the community together to assist an elderly neighbor with the much-needed renovations on his house. The town of Westport recognized Nancy for her heroic efforts with a plaque bestowed upon her at a ceremony in town and a lengthy article in the town’s newspaper.
Nancy and Tim had many plans to travel together, and even in her grief, Nancy took those trips and traveled the world. She has been everywhere from Mongolia to Patagonia, participated in “walking tours” in Morocco, took part in an archeological dig in Greece, and much more! In fact, during one of Nancy’s trips, she was featured in a CNN segment where she was touring Russia’s underground bunkers from WWII.
Nancy was an active gardener with wonderful flower and vegetable gardens. She took great pride in her house and worked hard to keep it looking nice. Nancy has a wonderful sense of interior design, as well as a passion for art and gathering sculptures and paintings from local artists. She is an avid reader and would read The New York Times from cover to cover each day, along with novels. Nancy is also very social – she loves talking to people and listening to their stories as well as sharing her own. Her New Year’s Day Open House was a hit with the community along with her cooking, especially her homemade chili. Nancy loved celebrating the new year with family and close friends, as it was an important part of her relationship with the community she had grown to love so much.
In the mid-2000’s, Nancy and her son published a book together! She became enamored with the stone walls of New England during her time in and around Westport Point, and her son is a trained photographer. The book is a collection of his photographs of the stone walls matched with Nancy’s original poems. It was a project that took several years to complete, but a success in the end. They titled it “A Poetry of Stone.”
Thank you, Nancy, for bringing so much joy and creativity to Kensington Park! We are grateful to have you as part of our family.