Nancy Jean Stacks Jennings, (1943 - 2021) - ForeverMissed.com Online Memorials

Let the memory of Nancy be with us forever.

78 years old
Born on March 18, 1943 in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States
Passed away on June 25, 2021 in Chandler, Arizona, United States

This memorial website was created in memory of our loved one, Nancy Stacks Jennings, 78 years old, born on March 18, 1943, and passed away on June 25, 2021. We will remember her forever.

We are so thankful for the love and condolences we’ve received and continuing to share memories and notes of support will help us during this time.

Donations are now closed. https://gofund.me/f9d7940a

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July 19, 2021

Nancy was and always will be the best sister-in-law I could ever have had. Words cannot express my sorrow. I remember fondly throughout the years Nancy's expressions of love for family, her having a book in hand, her telling stories, her teaching, and her calm and patient demeanor even with her little brother, my husband, Perry. Nancy will be in my memories and heart forever.

July 16, 2021

Ann and Family - I am so sorry for the loss of your Mom and though I did not know her personally (Ann and I work together), I can see just how of your Mom lives on through Ann and I'm sure, each and every one of you. May you hold your memories and happier times close as you navigate this period of your lives. Sending much support to you all.

July 6, 2021

Mom,

You have changed the world by the people you have touched. I am honored to have had you in my life, especially in such a major role! I feel lost without you in my world, but confident that you will always help guide me to the correct path, as you always did in life. There are not enough words in any language to express my sorrow. I feel comforted by the thought that you were just too good for this world and completed what you were put here for. There will not be a day from here on out that you will not be in my thoughts. I will miss you forever more.

July 1, 2021

(Facebook Post) From Ellen Giacomini

This is such of beautiful collection of tributes. Your words are so full of love and admiration for your Mom. There is no doubt her legacy will live on in all of you. Thank you for sharing. ❤️

July 1, 2021

From all of us at Az Security Control:

To Susan,
We would like to express our sincere condolences to you and your family.
On behalf of all of us here, please accept our deepest sympathies.

July 1, 2021

Ann,
I was so sorry to hear about your Mom's passing. You and your family are in my prayers every day.

June 30, 2021

I have fond memories of Nancy. We worked together on the Navajo Reservation. She was a constant and supportive friend and an advocate for teaching ideas. Nancy and I shared wonderful conversations and she inspired me in many ways. The world is a better place for her presence.

June 29, 2021

Ann, Keeping you and your family in our thoughts and prayers.

June 29, 2021

Ann and family, sending thoughts and hugs. You are in my prayers.

June 29, 2021

Ann and Family - So very sorry to hear of your moms passing. Sending thoughts, prayers and virtual hugs your way. Cherish the memories.

June 28, 2021

Nancy Jean

My Mom is from Shreveport, Louisiana.
My Mom is from Pennsylvania, California, Alaska, Arizona, and Vermont and many other places.
My Mom is from hummingbirds, dragonflies, and wind chimes.
My Mom is from homemade clothes and homemade jam.
My Mom is from gardens with strawberries, corn, and tomatoes.
My Mom is from sweet tea, lemon ice box pie, fried chicken and french fries.
My Mom is from roses, hollyhocks, and pansies.
My Mom is from parakeets and cockatiels.
My Mom is from reading, learning, teaching, imagination.
My Mom is from a love of storytelling and of listening to stories.
My Mom is from girls don't have to wear dresses or curl their hair or be anywhere near perfect.
My Mom is from long walks.
My Mom is from parks, museums, beaches.
My Mom is from toys aren't just for kids. She is from playing dominos, building with Legos, puzzling through puzzles.
My Mom is from adoring her Dad and her brother.
My Mom is also from her Mother, though that part comes with some thorns.
My Mom is from how she loved her children and husband and how they loved her back.
My Mom is from we won't forget you.
My Mom is from so much more than words can say.

June 27, 2021

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.

-Mary Elizabeth Frye

June 27, 2021

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this grief
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

-from Madeleine L'Engle, A Ring of Endless Light

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July 19, 2021

July 16, 2021

July 6, 2021

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Gallery

Niche (bottom center) in the columbarium at St. Mark's Cathedral in Shreveport, LA

Living Tree Donation Program, Tempe Public Library

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Her Life

Nancy Jean Stacks

June 27, 2021

Nancy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1943 to Virginia Lanier and Perry Alvin Stacks. Many of her relatives lived within a few blocks of the house she grew up in alongside her younger brother, Perry Jr. Her younger years were spent in a world of change following the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

Nancy left Louisiana to attend college in Pennsylvania and became a teacher, focusing on reading for elementary students. She was always eager to learn and would attend programs from California to Vermont to England. Nancy met Thomas Jennings, Jr. while at USC and eventually they married and began a family. The family wandered across Arizona and New Mexico, settling briefly in Virginia and Alaska before returning to the Navajo Reservation. In 1984 Nancy chose to begin teaching again and developed an elementary-level computer literacy course at Ganado, AZ.

Time marched on and children grew up and moved out (and back in). Nancy moved to the Phoenix area and continued to teach on nearby reservations as she preferred. Even while busy with teaching, she constantly explored other interests such as writing, storytelling, and art.

Nancy retired from teaching in 2009 but continued to remain busy. She volunteered at a hospice, participated in water aerobics, and continued to read voraciously. She was diagnosed as being in the early stages of dementia in 2020. Nancy is survived by 5 children and 9 grandchildren.

Obituary by Thomas Jennings, Jr., Husband

July 24, 2021

Obituary
NANCY JEAN STACKS JENNINGS
March 18, 1943 to June 25, 2021

At some indefinite moment in time, either before or after midnight, Nancy Jennings’ soul left the earthly confines of her husk. I won’t say it was untroubled, because it wasn’t, her stout heart, after giving life to five other beings, just couldn’t keep up with its pumping. That might imply that it simply stopped, but it didn’t. It probably kept some semblance of a beat a few more times, then went to nothing. Her earthly course was run.

For whatever reasons, the hospital allowed Nancy’s family members to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to say farewell. These included Sarah Jane and Elizabeth Alice, born in Phoenix at Memorial Hospital; Ann Melissa, born at Sage Memorial Hospital in Ganado, Arizona; Thomas Alexander, born at Fairfax County Hospital, Virginia; and Susan Emily, born at Sage Memorial Hospital, Ganado, Arizona. Ann’s daughters, Lili Lincoln and Marley Lincoln, granddaughters. Harry Walker and Camren Zoey Walker, Susan’s children, Nancy’s brother, Perry Stacks, Junior, and Nancy’s sister-in-law, Denell, were allowed into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to bid her goodbye.

I was not there at her passing, to my own great loss.

It all came to an end relatively quickly. That morning the doctors conferred that Nancy would “turn the corner” at any time and begin a recovery, by evening they had re-concurred and that she probably wouldn’t make it through the night. She was very restive off and on. And she didn’t make it.

We are not a very religious family, yet what first came to me, was the spiritual “That Great Gettin’ Up Day in the Mornin’” for I truly felt (and still do) that Nancy’s soul had left us to ascend to a higher plane.

Nancy graduated from Fair Park High School in Shreveport, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a baccalaureate degree in Anthropology. She continued her education at the University of Omaha, Teacher Corps program, where she, through the Arizona Department of Education obtained her teacher certification. The Teacher Corps assigned her to Kaibeto School in Shonto, Arizona. Then she transferred to Tohatchi Public (Gallup-McKinley County Schools, where she worked with Dr. Ruth Werner of ESL fame. She bought a new VW bus and festooned it with stick on “Hippie” flowers. She applied for and received a USDA graduate summer fellowship to the University of Southern California at Los Angeles in the Teaching of English to Speakers of American Indian Languages. I was in an alternate selection. We met during that program. We were a strange couple, to say the least. I took her to Padres and Los Angeles major league games, where she sat and read. She took me to Yosemite and fed me huge, ripe peaches dripping with fresh honey, and I learned to take pictures and paint. One of the highlights was the stealing of MY VW van sedan in Ft. Ord, San Diego, Marine Base. One evening in the rose garden at USC, I nervously asked if she would marry me, a loser, (didn’t really expect an answer) she responded “When?” The die was cast.

We attended grunion hunts along cold, chilly, foggy beaches. Once I took Nancy to a high class French seafood restaurant and she ordered a lobster (quite expensive) and then she didn’t eat all of it. I thought the maitre de and wait staff were going to have a cow. Nancy explained that she had eaten all she could and that she didn’t want a doggy bag, or even to take any of it with her. Left everyone scratching their heads, this little southern girl, and this hick from the Indian Reservation. This is not to say that these were not exciting times--Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and walked on the moon, while Michael Collins circled above. Sharon Tate and the La Biancas were murdered in bloody attacks by Charles Manson’s group.

Nancy had a penchant for dogs, especially Siberian Huskies. Her proudest moments came with a locally bred (chance) Samoyed/Siberian Husky mix, which she named Pretty Boy. Like his name he was a very pretty boy, and he knew it. She took him to classes in Scottsdale every weekend and he won every award and ribbon in sight. Unfortunately, his largesse could not overcome the bumper of a fast-moving Chevy pickup. She also liked birds and had them around to talk to.

There are still moments now when I think of calling Nancy just to ask a question or get some input. Or just to check in and get some reassurance from her calm voice, but that is over now--never again will I hear or wait for her deep measured response. Nancy always listened and put in her two bits, needed or not.

As we left Los Angeles, we reached a point on the highways, where I had to go south to Casa Grande and Nancy had to go north to Tohatchi. We finally arrived at the date of August, 29, 1969, to try and meet in Phoenix to get married and parted. The next few weeks were filled with letters, forms, and phone calls. We had long discussions about whether Nancy’s father should attend or not. I think Nancy flew Frontier Airlines to Phoenix that morning. We took our papers to the Maricopa County building and went to the first Superior Court Judge’s Office we could find. We had a choice, a lady judge (Sandra Day O’Connor) or a man (can’t remember his name). The man’s secretary came out into the hall, grabbed us by the arms and ushered us into his office. He scanned the papers, and, if I remember correctly, he recited the ceremony from memory, signed the papers, shook our hands and was gone. We went back to the street, where it was nearing 100 degrees. We wandered for a few blocks, found an air-conditioned movie theater just opening and went in to watch The Love Bug. Then we ate supper at a downtown storefront restaurant, checked in at a motel on Van Buren Avenue, where we stayed the night. That was our honeymoon. Then it was back to our respective schools to begin classes on Monday.

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) on the death of his wife, Livy (Mrs. Olivia Clemens) in 1904 in Italy, “She was the most beautiful spirit, and the highest and the noblest I have ever known. And now she is dead.”
“It was a blessed death-- She was all our riches and she is gone; she was our breath, she was our life and now we are nothing.”

The following year was filled with driving back and forth on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. I found a tiny lake behind the Tohatchi school and I caught some nice rainbow trout, which Nancy cooked. Yum, yum.

We spent the next three years in Casa Grande. Nancy at a couple of elementary schools and I at the junior high. I taught Language Arts in a team situation and coached football, girls’ basketball, boys’ basketball, and girls’ softball and I taught evening GED classes for Central Arizona College. I spent a year in Federal programs (Title IV, Indian Education Act, Johnson-O’Malley Act) with the Gila Bend Public Schools.

I took a teaching internship with the Department of Secondary Education at Arizona State University. Nancy taught school; took graduate classes in elementary and special education; and had Sarah Jane and Elizabeth Alice with mid-wives at Phoenix Memorial. She got her Master’s degree in Elementary Education.

We moved to the Ganado Public Schools on the Navajo Nation where I did Federal Projects and Nancy taught. Dr. Thelma Wenger was Superintendent and Rhoma Lubbers was Business manager. I lucked out and took Federal grant money away from the rest of the state. We got an Intermediate school building complex for the District. I moved to the Navajo Academy at the College of Ganado as Headmaster. Ann Melissa was born at Sage Hospital on July 2. We moved the Academy, lock, stock, and barrel, to the Navajo Methodist Mission in Farmington, New Mexico the following year.

After two years there, I applied for and received a National Education Fellowship sponsored by the Ford Foundation. So, off we went to Washington, D.C.; with a U-Haul truck, three little girls, a black cat, which left us somewhere in Kansas, and a very pregnant Nancy. I was assigned to work on the Congressional mandated definition of “Indian” within the U.S. Office of Education. My office was in a building next to the Rayburn Building. We found a three story colonial house to rent from a kind understanding Pentagon Army officer in Arlington, Virginia. Nancy got bigger and I set off on a whirlwind of meetings with Native Americans around the Country. Thomas Alexander (namesakes for Jefferson and Hamilton) was born at Fairfax County Hospital and promptly turned yellow. A fellowship lasts a year. We didn’t want to live in D.C., so I looked for work. In the meantime I was moved to the White House (Administration) to work on the President’s Rural Initiatives. The U.S. Department of Education came into existence. Offices and people moved. I started talking with the University of Alaska in Fairbanks about a position with the Cross-Cultural Educational Development (X-CED) Program. Thomas returned to a normal color. Nancy shuddered. We attended the Fourth of July celebration (fireworks) on the Potomac River. The next morning, I was on a plane to Fairbanks, Alaska. Nancy, the girls and a baby boy got on the road in a van to Seattle and Mount St. Helens. Much of the household was sent via the U.S. Post Office. I was assigned to a three-bedroom house on the Fairbanks campus. We all finally arrived in a melee at the airport in Fairbanks with various passengers holding, corralling, and otherwise trying to control three kids and a big baby boy.

We eventually bought a house in Fairbanks, Sarah and Lizzie started school. I began my round of bush flights. Nancy had a miscarriage. The house burned down. Thank you Red Cross and State Farm. Nancy got pregnant again. Sarah and I in a U-Haul truck, pulling a VW, left for Many Farms High School (BIA), Arizona. Nancy, now very, very pregnant, with two girls, a little boy, and the van left Alaska by boat.

Basically, I had professionally hit the bottom of my barrel, I was just too dumb to know it.

I started over again and began teaching Senior English and Apple computers at Many Farms High School (BIA). Nancy bore Susan Emily at Sage Memorial Hospital. We moved back to Ganado, again. Albert A. Yazzie was Superintendent. Nancy raised Susie and Thomas, then went back to teaching and making pretty little dresses for the girls. Sarah and Lizzie and Annie went to school.

Is it any wonder I still look for Nancy to call now? She was our everything, the glue that held us all (especially me) together, who put up with all my elusive dreams and schemes and followed when and where no one else would. To make things right again. And even as I write this, I am astounded at the many failures of my lived life. And at the fifty years and five kids we spent together apart and now she is dead. And we weep bitter tears of loss.

I got lucky again and got Federal Impact Aid funding for a new Primary building at Ganado. Then I went to Rough Rock Community School, a Robert and Faith Roessell Navajo language project. Two years there and I left for consulting, this time back to Sacaton on the Akmiel Nation (Pima), where I had lived with my mother when a teenager. Sarah and Lizzie and Annie graduated from Ganado High School, Sarah was an Apache County Spelling Champion, Lizzie was Valedictorian. Sarah went to Purdue (Veterinary) and finally finished with a Library Science degree at the University of Arizona, Lizzie went to Arizona State University (B.S. Aeronautical Engineering); as usual Annie went her own way, graduating from Gateway Community College under a Toyota mechanical program. Thomas lived with me at Rough Rock and learned to play basketball. He played at Sanders H.S. for four years, winning all-state and reservation all-star honors and got letters in basketball, football, and baseball. He graduated from Sanders. He tried college (Northland Pioneer) and basketball, but didn’t survive. He wrecked the family car. We moved to Scottsdale, where Susan attended and graduated from The New School for the Arts.

Now, I ask you, was this not a lot for any person, let alone a mother with five kids. Oh, yes, we also need to know that from Ganado Primary School, Nancy was awarded a fellowship to study at the Breadloaf School of English in Middlebury, Vermont, where she traveled each summer. She even took me and poet Sigmund Boloz there one summer. She also taught a year at Casa Blanca Community School, where I worked as a consultant.

The key words which best described Nancy to her children were “nice,” “not mean,” and “patient.” How many people have lived their lives under these banners? And how she loved to cook. I have been doubly blessed to have had a mother who could cook rare good things and a wife who did too.

How about the hours in her retirement that she, unannounced, gave to hospice and palliative care? Perhaps to see where she might be going and how she would get there? And how many of us will finally and really honor our promises to donate our bodies to science? Nancy Stack Jennings did all these things without expectation of notice or reward. She had a full, beautiful life. We will sorely miss her from this day forward.

Rest in peace, Dearest Nancy.

Because of the War

June 27, 2021

This was written by Nancy as a gift to her children.

When I was very young, many things in my life were affected by the war, although I didn't realize it at the time. Most days were, in fact, rather pleasant.

Looking back, life seemed a little more subdued then. Not very much to do -- not many places to go, except Sunday school and to visit relatives. There seemed to be all the time in the world and it was always sunny and warm, but maybe it seems that way to all kids.

Mama rode to the neighborhood grocery store on a bike with me riding behind. We had to have red cents to buy food -- something to do with rationing. I look at the old cook books with their sugarless, eggless cakes, but the only differences in food I remember were oleo instead of butter and saccharin in the iced tea.

1943 pennies were made of steel instead of copper. Since I was born in 1943, pennies my age are very distinctive. I think that was the only year they were made of steel.

The whole neighborhood had a rather pleasant animal smell -- chickens and rabbits in the backyards, cow manure in the gardens, horse droppings in the streets. It was patriotic to raise your own chickens and vegetables -- besides, meat was a little scarce in the stores. I likes to pick up the chicken feathers and make Indian headdresses out of them. I remember once when my mother wrung the neck of an old rooster, he didn't die at once, but ran around the yard in circles with his head flopping from side to side.

I loved to hold the rabbits, although they were almost as big as I was -- they were so white and soft and heavy. I liked to feed them bits of lettuce and carrots through the wire, but a little scared, too, of those big teeth.

I could almost always find a garter snake or at least a spider in the garden to scare our neighbor lady with. Mrs. Grasso would scream and back away in the most delightful way. She always had cookies for us -- I always thought they were special Italian cookies because they had a different taste from those my mother made.

The iceman and the milkman drove horse-drawn wagons. I liked to watch for them and pet their horses. The iceman's huge tong were fascinating and he would always chip off a piece of ice for me.

The wringer washer was out in the garage. I thought it was great fun to put the clothes through the wringer and see them squeezed so flat. Back then it seemed we did half our living outside then -- before central heating and air conditioning. In summer, the windows were always open and the attic fan was on day and night.

I don't really remember that many uniforms around -- except when Uncle Herman, Uncle Jesse, or Uncle Donald would come home occasionally in sailor suits, or Uncle Walter or Sonny Sorrel down in the street would come home in brown uniforms. I remember Uncle Felix in dress blues, but that may have been after the was when the Air Force became a separate service. I don't remember Uncle Robert or Arthur or Bobby in uniform, although I know they were in the Army. I remember that my mother and Aunt Thelma always wore their nurses capes to work in the winter. After the war they didn't.

Some of these memories undoubtedly occurred during the war, but some were almost surely in 1946, '47 or '48 because even though the war was over, demobilization and gearing up to peacetime production took time. Automatic washer, refrigerators, new cars, tires simply took time to produce and there were waiting lists of customers for all of them. I remember that we finally got a new Chevy in 1948 to replace our '31 Ford and promptly set off on a vacation in the Rockies.

Happy Birthday

March 19, 2023

Hey Mom,

Yesterday was your 80th birthday. We all got together, near your just blooming tree, which overlooked many happy families, to celebrate with fried chicken, 3 types of potatoes (So many potatoes) and plenty of desserts.

It was a beautiful day.

We talked about any and everything, with laughter. Some of us explored the landscape. We were together, because of you.

You raised some pretty spectacular people, Mom. You made sure that we knew that meeting with good food and good conversation is important and a guarantee that our moods, spirits and hearts would absolutely be lifted.

I felt you there, looking over us, happy to see us all together, happy and healthy.

Happy 80th Mom.

We love you always.

August 28, 2021

Thanks to contributions, Nancy has some new homes...

She has a "leaf" at the Tempe Public Library through their Living Tree Donation program. A corresponding tree will be planted in her honor at at Evelyn Hallmark Park in Tempe, near the Phoenix Zoo (another place she enjoyed).

Her children and husband each received a portion of her ashes to place somewhere meaningful to their memory of her.

Some of her ashes were placed at St Mark's Cathedral in Shreveport, Louisiana so she will be close to her Father, who also rests there. Her Niche is 86, in the West Barlow Garden, Section II.

For the other placement discussions, it sounds like she may get to visit her favorite destinations once again. Vermont, California, Hawaii, Ireland, and England have all been mentioned.

And of course, she also lives in our hearts and memories forever.

Thank you again for helping us honor her memory in so many ways.

(Facebook Post) From Sarah Jennings

June 28, 2021

June 25, 2021

Nancy Jean (Stacks) Jennings

1943-2021

They say life is what happens when you make other plans. As it turns out, so is death.

There have been a lot of changes in the world over the last few years. In our little corner of it, our mother was diagnosed as being in the early stages of dementia. Mom knew the signs after volunteering at a hospice after she retired. Being practical, she gave up her car when she no longer felt safe and asked Lizzie to move in with her. She quietly discussed her wishes with us a little at a time and set them out in her will.

Of course, that does not make any of this any easier. Mom had been coughing last week and it was bothersome enough that she finally went to urgent care. From there she was sent to the ER for an erratic heartbeat. Mom was admitted and then moved to the ICU. We took turns visiting and then staying overnight to keep an eye on her as things progressed. Mom kept trying to get out of bed and eventually was able to communicate that she knew where she was and that she wanted to go home. While the family discussed what to do in regards to future care, Mom quietly slipped away.

Mom was the heart of our family. She kept us together and in touch or let us have the space we needed to grow. I suppose we were her everlasting garden, planted with care among the other things she loved - pansies with cheerful faces, books from all genres, Apple computers. She fed us the Southern food she loved and the Southwestern food she learned to cook for Dad.

Mom made the best of wherever she was. She made us matching outfits for Christmas and Mardi Gras. We picked tiny strawberries and blueberries in Alaska. Mom always made a few friends in each place and delighted in teaching. She worked with the kids in her classroom the same way she worked with us at home. There was always patience for learning and tolerance for different abilities.

Mom, we didn’t expect you to leave quite so soon and it is hard to picture life without you somewhere nearby. Thank you. I love you.

P. S. I hope Grandpa will sing “You Are My Sunshine” for you when you get to him.

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