Obituary

Nancy L. Lord, obituary

Tue, 01/13/2015 - 1:15pm

HOPE — Nancy Lee Lord passed away Dec. 29, 2014, at the Knox Center for Longterm Care in Rockland.

Born Nancy Lee Bean in Bangor on June15, 1930, the granddaughter of Bangor business scions Charles Murray and Crosby Bean, Nancy was educated in Boston and joined Jack I. Lord in the work of matrimony in 1950 — a marriage skillfully engineered by the couple's mothers and a job Nancy successfully held and flourished in for almost 60 years.

Nancy was extremely active in civic life during the school year in Bangor, sitting on boards such as the Savoyards, YWCA, Literacy Volunteers and the Junior League. On the last day of school Nancy singlehandedly packed up the family (Jack, a commercial insurance agent was busy traveling New England) and moved to Hope, where for 20 years she was co-owner and CEO of Hatchet Mountain Camps, the family housekeeping cottage business on Hobbs Pond that was built on the site of Hatchet Mountain Boys Camp, which had been started in 1926 by her great-aunt and -uncle, Phil and Mickey Jones.

In 1976 she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maine with a degree in English, whereupon her formidable and lifelong expertise in correcting the slightest grammatical error with great glee ascended to new heights.

But it was building their retirement home in Hope in 1986—one Nancy designed—that gave her perhaps the greatest pleasure for it allowed her time with her beloved Jack to create a space that held family and friends and, as an active volunteer with P.A.W.S, many cats and kittens.

An accomplished seamstress, miniaturist and lover of the wild small creatures winged and furred, dearly loved grandmother, as well as a perpetually enigmatic mother and woman of great strength and charm, Nancy leaves behind her son, Jeffrey Carleton Lord, and daughter-in-law, Nancy Dowling, and daughter, Tracy Ann Lord, all of Hope; her son, Peter Nowell Lord, and daughter-in-law, Kimberly, of Red Bluff, Calif.; her grandchildren, Marisa, Miguel and Nathan Lord of Brunswick, Clarissa Lord Brundage of Seattle, Gillian Lord Mutti of Berlin, Mass., and Meredith Lord of Red Bluff, Calif.

A private memorial service will be held in the spring.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Nancy's memory may be made to P.A.W.S, 146 Camden St., Rockport, ME 04856.

A deeply heartfelt thanks to all of Nancy's caregivers, who over the last five years showed great compassion and respect for a woman struggling with an insidious disease. A more recent debt of thanks to the caregivers of the Knox Center in Rockland, who without exception bestowed incredible care and love upon her and all those in residence. Nancy, able to finally slip free from the bonds of Alzheimer's, re-joins her husband Jack — who, as on earth, will once again be her prime focus. Good luck Dad.

Arrangements are with Long Funeral Home & Cremation Service.