Nancy was laid to rest on Friday, February 23rd, on her beloved Pender Island, with family, many friends, and community guests in attendance. The weather, which had been rainy and damp all week, dramatically cleared for the burial, and the sun shown brightly. Her husband Barrie, sister Mary Carol, Barrie's children, and many other cherished colleagues, neighbors, and friends paid tribute to Nancy. Barrie's daughter Sara led the burial event proceedings, which was followed by a brief gathering of the community for refreshments and discussion, before friends and neighbors departed for their homes and off-island destinations.
Photographs and personal reflections are most welcome.
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Memories of Nancy
By Elliot G. Mishler
I first met Nancy in 1960. Even now I am startled by the date. It marks how long we knew each other. And that, in turn, suggests how much we shared of each other’s lives. She had just finished her PhD at Harvard’s Social Relations Department and had accepted a post-doctoral Fellowship on a research project at the Mass Mental Health Center, a Harvard-affiliated state mental hospital. I had arrived there the year before to direct a research training program for social and behavioral scientists planning to work in the field of psychiatry and was setting up a research unit I called the Laboratory of Social Psychiatry.
Quite by chance, my wife Anita had also taken a part-time research position at MMHC. They came to know each other but their relationship was influenced by their shared friendship with two other co-workers. One, an older woman, was a Polish émigré who had studied at universities in Warsaw and Paris but was then working as a secretary. The other was a young Harvard U. graduate, the son of a wealthy and prominent Brahmin family whose name is on at least one Harvard building. They would often have lunch together and became good friends. It was an early sign for me of Nancy’s extraordinary ability to enter into relationships with a wide variety of people.
This was the background to my offering Nancy a job the following year, to work with me in developing a program of research on families and schizophrenia. I already knew, both from Anita and my own acquaintanceship with her, that she was very smart, hard working, and highly skilled in research methods. I did not anticipate how good our working relationship would become. We did very good research together over a period of twenty-plus years. It is difficult to communicate to others both how much we learned from each other and how much fun we had working together through the often difficult stages of a research project. I believe that she knew how much I respected her abilities, her ways of thinking, her strengths in finding ways to break away from old ways of thinking to come up with new solutions. It was through our working together that our friendship developed. Not everything we talked about, of course, was about work. We respected and trusted each other and could offer each other comfort at hard times – as she did when Anita became ill – and also enjoy each other’s good times. As I could applaud her adventures in Sri Lanka in the 70’s. We became and remained good friends through our years together and afterwards.
With all of her success, not only in her work but in establishing a full and rewarding life for her self through her friendships which she fostered, she knew that she wanted more. Her first trips to Sri Lanka were not only about doing research but about testing her own strengths to move in new directions. Meeting Barrie in the 1970’s was the turning point. Her capacity to make the decision to change her life was quite remarkable. I took on the role of the older brother, worrying about whether she understood what she was doing. She made it clear that she was sure. And, of course, as all of us know, she was right.
We kept up with each other’s lives after she left for Vancouver and I was fortunate to come to know Barrie through occasional visits and correspondence. And, in her usual way, she let me know that she still cared about what was happening in my life – pressing me for more details in my letters about what my sons and grandchildren were doing, as well as what Vicky and I were up to. These were among the many ways in which she let me and all her friends know that she was still with us though far away. I am deeply grieved by her loss.
MY FRIENDSHIP WITH NANCY
By Janet Giele
February 20, 2007.
I count Nancy as one of my oldest dearest friends. We met 50 years ago, on the third floor of Emerson Hall at Harvard University, where we were both graduate students in sociology. She was several years older than I and reached out to me as a first-year student. It was so wonderful to find somebody from the Midwest, who understood the same things and valued the same things that I did. Both of us had fairly modest goals at that time. She was actively thinking of returning to the Girl Scout organization where she had been a leader during her college years. I also had still fairly simple hopes – to get a master’s degree and become a college teacher. Then I married, we both received our doctorates, and Nancy became a prominent researcher in the mental health field and in cross-cultural studies of illness and healing. She was the godmother to our daughter Elizabeth. We had many happy family times together when she went with us to Cape Cod or she brought her parents out to see us (along with a full freezer of homemade ice cream). We managed to stay in close touch during our first 25 years. Then, in the early 1980s, after Nancy had spent several years doing research abroad, she married Barrie and moved to Vancouver. I can’t think of a peer, whom I admired more for her wonderful combination of a sense of humor and intelligent understanding of our profession as well as outstanding qualities as teacher and mentor. She had the capacity to stay anchored in the everyday world of living a good life with good food, beautiful surroundings, and time to enjoy reading and leisure and travel. I especially valued her scholarship, her homemaking skills, and her broad and generous understanding and acceptance of many different life patterns wherever she went.
Although Nancy was different from me as a sociologist (less theoretical, more empirical), I admired her achievements and learned a great deal from her. Her research was impressive: along with Elliot Mishler at Massachusetts Mental Health Center she conducted many small group observations of families with and without a schizophrenic member. Some of the leading younger generation of psychiatrists in America were trained in their lab. While I was swamped with teaching at Wellesley College and taking care of two small children, Nancy seemed to soar with all kinds of successful research proposals and publications. For a long time she also taught a research methods course at Emmanuel College that I used as a model for teaching my own course on methods at Wellesley. Rather than have students only learn from a book, she plunged them into the field by having them carry out an actual research survey. In the early 1970s, she went to Sri Lanka, a move that took tremendous courage, but at the same time, that brought a whole new perspective to her scholarly work. She had decided to go into a field setting where she could observe how mentally ill persons were treated in the community. It was a time when sociologists in America were beginning to be conscious of what we called “labeling”, and Nancy saw the potential for applying this theoretical framework to the treatment of persons with mental illness. In Sri Lanka she found that the prayers and rituals and religious observances that surrounded a sick person had the effect of helping that person heal much faster and return to normal. This was a powerful potential critique of the Western pattern that labeled a person as mentally ill and then potentially trapped him in the treatment system so that return to a normal life became difficult.
Along with Nancy’s amazing productivity as a sociologist, I found her matter-of-fact practicality something very reassuring. She knew how to cook and sew and in later years, would write me about her garden. Last fall she wrote that they had run out of water in the middle of the summer, and everything just dried up. She brought silk from India to make pillows for the couch. She used her mother’s loom to weave placemats and napkins. She made beautiful light yellow draperies for the house at Pender. Back in the 60s, she had embroidered a lovely Scandinavian tapestry for our daughter Elizabeth that hung above her bed for many years. Why do I have all these memories of cookie-making and her special granola recipe or these many home crafts? I think the reason is that for women like us who graduated from college in the 1950s and for whom there was little expectation that we would have a career (and as women graduate students at Harvard we were a tiny minority), it was not easy to picture oneself as both a scholar and a homemaker. But Nancy was a model of how to do that. I was grateful for her example, and I felt the kind of love for her that one would for a sister, but without any of that sense of rivalry or competition that so often enters into family life.
The overarching quality that permeated Nancy’s life was that she was an adventurer and a citizen of the world in all its richness and color. You could go with her to the symphony, or to the Museum of Fine Arts, for a walk around Wellesley, or skate on Lake Waban in winter – she was comfortable doing it all, and enjoyed it. She valued her family and the cousins who lived around the country and with whom she made an effort to observe reunions. We heard about her parents, about Mary Carol and her children, and Mary Carol’s meteoric rise in mid-life as a medical researcher. There were accounts of the egg hunts at Easter on the family farm in Illinois that made you wish you could be there. We heard about the wedding on Pender Island when one of the bride’s party (Mary Carol?) had to leave her dress behind (to catch the ferry?) and had to dress up in something like Nancy’s kimono. (Nancy could always see the funny side of things.) She had many friends: Sheila from India, Elliot her colleague at Harvard, Sister Marie Augusta Neal, who had invited each of us to teach at Emmanuel College, and many others. We saw her beautiful pictures from Sri Lanka, elephants and festivals and footpaths to remote villages to do interviews. With her parents she had traveled to Scotland, and Egypt, and later with Barrie she covered the globe from Russia , China, Japan, and Australia to Europe several times. I owe her thanks for telling me about the wonderful fellowship opportunity at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. During 1993 when I was on sabbatical in Germany, it was almost magical to meet her and Barrie in Bremen, and a few weeks later in Berlin at Easter along with our son Ben. In 1997, I visited them for a week in England where they were renting an apartment in Hampstead. Best of all was visiting Nancy and Barrie on Pender Island with a beautiful ferry ride both going and coming. I first visited in 1984, and both David and I together in 1989 after we had been in Seattle, and again in 1999, when seeing them was the high point of a tour that began in the Canadian Rockies. We enjoyed their beautiful house, vegetable garden with fence and flowers and vines, and the good food and pleasant walks and conversation that ensued. From the intimate to the global and back again, Nancy was comfortable inhabiting wherever she was at the moment.
Our whole family will miss her very much, but it is a comfort to remember what happy times we had together. Nancy brought light and cheer and beauty and fun to our lives as she did to many others’. We were privileged to know her, and we share with those others who knew and loved her so well a sorrow that she is no longer with us.
Some thoughts of Nancy.
When the news of Nancy’s passing reached us in Cape Town, we were shocked and deeply saddened. There are a few words that conjure up the essence of Nancy as a person.
She was gentle yet strong, unassuming yet confident, quiet and peaceful with lots of inner strength. We have always known her to think of others before herself. She would take time to sit and talk with my mother who at 91 and hard of hearing enjoyed the attention she gained. She made a point of following up on her former students checking to see if they had been accepted in graduate programs for which they had applied.
Rooted in Vancouver and on Pender Island, she returned each year from wherever they had traveled, to ensure that the soil was tilled in her garden and the new seeds planted in time. .Is this regard, she was a rare combination of rural and urban, of local and international, comfortable with different locations and different people in an uncomplicated way. The genuineness behind all of this resulted in a cosmopolitan world citizen living on Pender Island, yet honoring her family roots in America.
As an unassuming, retired academic, she continued to retain her intellectual curiosity as was evident in her on going interest in research to improve immigrant health care, and astute knowledge of world affairs. It was a common sight to see her on the BC Ferries with her bundle of past issues of the International Herald Tribune. We chided her often about how far back she was in her reading… and always with a twinkle in the eye, she said I’m only three weeks behind now!
So no more the competition for whose corn had grown the tallest, no more the warm gifts of apple pie from her garden produce, and no more the chance to exchange warm conversations with a good, kind, empathetic friend, gone too soon. In our small world of genuine friendships this is a deep loss indeed. With Barry carrying on her legacy, we will continue to celebrate the spirit of Nancy.
Go well, dear friend. We will miss and remember you for what you gave us all.
Kogila Moodley and Heribert Adam
When I was nine years old, I took my first trip to London with my mother Leslie and my grandmother Mary Carol. We went to London to spend Christmas with my great aunt Nancy and her husband Barrie. It was wonderful to be shown around London by Aunt Nancy and Uncle Barrie for they were the ultimate experts on this fascinating city. Even better was Christmas! I had my first experience with breaking crackers and wearing golden crowns during Christmas dinner at their London flat. This has now become a celebratory Christmas tradition in our family. I will never forget that Christmas in London.
A few years later, my grandmother and I visited Nancy and Barrie on Pender Island. I had a fantastic time with Nancy and Barrie engaging in activities I do not usually do, since I live in New York City. Nancy gave me a lesson or two on gardening in her magnificent flower and vegetable garden, even though I was afraid of the snakes and insisted on wearing giant boots and gloves for protection. Barrie let me drive the lawnmower/tractor with him. My grandmother taught me to sew on the sewing machine in Nancy's basement. We baked, laughed, watched a nature movie or two, relaxed, and truly enjoyed ourselves. At the end of the trip, Nancy and Barrie showed me the tree they planted in my name when I was born. Since then Nancy would send me annual picture updates about my tree. It is such an honor to have my own tree on the beautiful land Nancy and Barrie made into their home.
Besides our similar academic interests and our witty senses of humor (if I may say so myself), Nancy and I both share a love of traveling. I only wish to cover as much ground as she did. Nancy, her interests, and her accomplishments are an inspiration to me. Her spirit will never be forgotten for it resides on Pender Island, and in the faraway places she traveled to.
Quincy Kevan
Dear Barrie,
It is with great sorrow I send you this message of condolence to you on the death of your beloved wife. I was really fortunate to work with her from 1976 when she joined the dept. of Sociology, University of Peradeniya. It was Social Psychology that we taught. We should not forget that with her only we drew the syllabus of Sociology. Still remember the happy days we spent together during that time and afterwards. Her simple qualities were remarkable.
With my heartiest sympathies I remain,
Padmini Bandaranayake
Senior Lecturer, Dept of Sociology,
University of Peradeniya
Many years ago a good friend of mine suggested that the best measure of a person was seen in their ability to elevate people around them to a higher level of being. To me, this is the greatest example of Nancy's life and her contributions to the lives of those people she knew. Nancy was a person of tremendous compassion and empathy, which complemented her truly exceptional intellect. For some people this could have been a formula for vanity or selfishness, but Nancy was neither of these. Instead, she displayed great patience with a willingness to engage in a positive manner in all things, and was as dignified as she was personable.
Growing up with her letters and gifts from far off places was like being offered pieces to a Sherlock Holmes story, every tidbit was more substance for thought and intrigue, and her visits were cherished events because they were always so fascinating. Hearing stories of travels through many countries, with her calm demeanor, made life seem as if it was in fact a managable experience, even while fording rivers in Sri Lanka during monsoon season. Nancy had a kind of reserved aplomb which made me see her in the light of a seasoned explorer, which in fact she really was.
I have tremendous memories of Nancy helping to turn the hand crank on the ice cream maker in Urbana, flying kites on Cape Cod, touring the old missions of California, whale watching in Big Sur, and every experience was always complemented with her gentle laugh and ability to point out more detail than was obvious. Her ability to spot birds in the field and to point out the footprints of animals was almost magical.
Nancy was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known, and the fact that I was privileged to grow up with her as my aunt was a life's blessing. Her presence in my life has led me to see things beyond the limits of my own experience, and to challenge myself to always seek out greater and greater insight into the simplest of details, because there is always more there than our eyes will see. The words shared by her friends and colleagues at her memorial service rang completely true. She was a mentor of great stature, a friend worthy of the highest levels of confidence and trust, a colleague of highly reliable skill and acumen, and a person of such humanitarianism that she emoted care and consideration in everything she did and said.
Stepping away from this day, I go forth in my own life with an overwhelming sense of loss, but also the greatest of inspiration that the standard for true excellence as a person was displayed by her to the world, and that carrying on with this as a guide for living is the highest honor anyone could bestow on the memory of such a fine being.
In all things, Nancy remains as one of my greatest and most beloved teachers of life.
We were shocked to hear the news about Nancy. I could not do anything after I read Barrie’s mail. My wife Renjini could not do her normal work on the day. Even when I write this mail, I have not completely recovered from the shock and my worries about Barrie.
I met Nancy and Barrie, some twenty years ago, at the entrance of the library building of the Centre for Development Studies, in Kerala. Both of them were to do their research in Kerala when I met them. That was the beginning of their association with the Loyola College of Social Sciences in Kerala to which I was then associated with. I remember Nancy giving us an interesting session on research methodology. Since then my friendship with them continued, through letters, greeting cards and emails, though they were sporadic. In 1997, Barrie invited me to the UBC to participate in a workshop on Cooperative Management of Water Resources in South Asia, held at the Institute of Asian Research. That time, I had the taste of Nancy’s hospitality, at their homes in Vancouver and on the Pender Island. Nancy seemed to me a very quite person. She was very sensitive to the needs of her host. Later, in 2002, before I moved to South Africa, I visited them with my family. My son Dakshin was only 5 years then. I remember Nancy making an egg in a special vessel, to coax him to eat. She knew that children like food in funny shapes. Yes it worked with Dakshin. During our stay Nancy and Barrie took us around on the Pender Island and to their home in Vancouver where they accommodated us in their main bed room, preferring to sleep themselves in the small living room. She was, like Barrie, very kind, gentle and nice. We thought that Nancy and Barrie would visit us in South Africa, for us to enjoy their presence and warmth. But Nancy has left. We wish and pray for her peace in Heaven, and for great strength to Barrie to overcome this reality.
Sooryamoorthy, Renjini and Dakshin
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