Nancy J. Gordon
MISSOULA — Nancy J. Gordon, (1934-2014), our beloved mother, sister, and friend, has passed on to her next journey. Her three children, Rebecca of Spokane, Wash., Barry of Missoula and Julia of Boise, Idaho, as well as her brother Phillip Ward of Seattle, Wash. survive her.
Nancy celebrated her life through her musical expression as an opera singer and pianist in her youth, a potter and weaver during her child-rearing years and finally during these last twenty years, through her artistic expression with painting and participation through the Sandpiper Art Gallery community in Polson.
She gifted her children and friends with her creativity, intelligence and quirky sense of humor. Born in Greensboro, N.C., her family moved to Seattle when she was 13 years old. Her early studies in theatre, music and opera singing brought her to perform in many venues including the former Green Lake Aqua Theatre in Seattle. She met and married her husband, Clarence Gordon, in Seattle, eventually moving to Missoula Montana with her young family.
As a creative, intelligent and politically engaged woman, she studied history, art and literature, both formally and informally and was always ready with a well-informed perspective of world events. Through her community activism, in the late 1970’s she was awarded a Kellogg Foundation Leadership Grant. In later years, she focused her energies on creating beautiful watercolor and multi-media paintings, exploring expression through color and design, and ideas through participation in her beloved literary group in Polson Montana. As a final act, the day after she passed, we found out that she’d won a blue ribbon at the Missoula County Fair for her artwork. We thank The Springs, her assisted living facility, for helping her in that endeavor.
We have all benefited through Nancy’s passion for beauty and order and exploration of ideas, despite her years of ill health. Nancy was a quietly courageous and incredibly strong soul, encouraging to her friends and supportive to her children, and we shall dearly miss her. A celebration of Nancy’s life will be held for her next May, 2015, near the Bison Range in the Flathead Valley of Montana, when all the spring flowers are in bloom, a time and place near and dear to her heart. We will post the location and time for this celebration next spring in the Missoula and Polson papers. A final thank you goes out to Missoula’s Partners in Home Care Hospice Team for all their guidance and support in Nancy’s final days.
