B. Nora Hirsch

1918-2011

On the first day of winter, December 22, Beatrice Nora Hirsch passed away peacefully at her home in Napa. Ken, her husband and the love of her life, preceded her in death in June 2010, to her continuing sorrow.

Nora was born April 24, 1918 in Penticton, BC, Canada, the middle of three daughters of R.P. and Laura Eileen Brown. Her mother’s family had been in BC since the 1860s; R.P. immigrated from England as a young man. She grew up  in BC at Penticton, Bonnington, and the family’s ranch on Vaseaux Lake south of Penticton. She remembered her childhood as a happy time swimming, riding, skiing, camping, and accompanying her dad on bird hunting trips.

Nora attended UBC in Vancouver and Armstrong College in Berkeley. In 1942 she moved to Mobile, AL, to work at the Canadian Consulate. After the war she lived in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver as well as in Penticton, working at secretarial jobs. In 1952 she married the photographer Dick Dorrow. The couple lived in the Okanogan and then in Vancouver, but the marriage failed. Nora headed south to work as secretary and then programmer at Stanford, where she also earned a degree in economics. 

In the early 1960s Nora met Ken Hirsch of Chicago, who was a student at Stanford as well as competing on Stanford’s swim and dive teams. They fell in love and were married in August 1964. They lived in Bozeman, MT, and Eugene, OR, while Ken pursued an MA and PhD in Communication Studies. In 1969 they moved to Sacramento for Ken to become a professor at CSU, and finally to Napa in 1988.

Nora and Ken traveled widely in the U.S. and Europe, lived for a year in Sweden, and also visited Israel, Egypt, Mexico, and the South Pacific. They had a series of adored cats and dogs and loved to ski, camp and scuba dive, remaining active until late in life. Nora was a gardener with a special love of California’s native plants, and was passionate about animals and the environment. She commented in her 90s that she should have been a geologist.

Nora’s lifelong passion for ceramics first emerged when she took a class in 1950. She pursued her craft for half a century, with special interest in glazes, and made numerous beautiful and original pieces. At the time of her last forays with clay, in her early 80s, her focus had turned from throwing to building.

Nora was gentle, curious, adventurous, independent, humorous, stoic and self-deprecating to the end.

Nora was a beloved aunt to Anne Thorstenson (Keremeos, BC), Nora Tuckey (deceased, Calgary), Eileen ‘Dede’ Emery (Oliver, BC), Martha Jackson (Seattle), Laura Johnson (Loveland, CO), and Rudi Constant (Mayne Island, BC) and great aunt to Corinna Tuckey (Boston) and Shelley Ruskowsky (Calgary) and Dianne Thorstenson (Keremeos); she had four great-great-nieces.

Tributes, photos and reminiscences may be added to www.forevermissed.com/nhirsch. Details will be posted there regarding an informal memorial gathering in Napa, CA. Date to be announced.  Donations are welcomed to Humane Society or Natural Resources Defense Council.