Nancy Blaney

Blaney
Nancy Alexander Blaney Nancy Alexander Blaney passed away February 4, 2011 after a long period of Alzheimer's.
She was born June 17, 1927. Her father was James P. Alexander and her mother Elizabeth Akin Alexander.
The family lived in Waco where Nancy's father was a judge and a law professor at Baylor University. When he was elected Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, the family moved to Austin, Texas, where Nancy attended Austin High School. Upon graduation, she attended a year of Sweetbriar College (VA) and then enrolled in the University of Texas. She began as a chemical engineer but changed to a history major and graduated with a UT degree in History. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta. It was at UT where she met her future husband. Later, she earned a degree in Geography from the University of Houston.
Nancy participated in community services. She helped with the Camp Fire Girls and did volunteer work for Unicef's U.N. Store for Children in Houston. She loved gardening and, as a mother, worked for a number of years with the group at St. John's School.
Nancy was an adventurist. She enjoyed the family vacations of hiking and camping in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. She liked snorkeling in many places in the Caribbean but liked Asia more, the favorite island being out of Malaysia's Borneo.
Nancy served as a crewmember of a three-masted tall sailing ship, the Regina Maris, doing scientific research on humpback whales. The whales gathered together every year to a small area northeast of the Dominican Republic. There the female whales deliver calves from the previous year or became pregnant that year. The purpose of the research was to take photographs of the tails, which are unique like fingerprints, in order to be able to identify and thereby learn more about the individual humpback whales in subsequent years.
Nancy went on a research project to help measure the largest North American volcano (Poas Volcano), which had never been explored or measured. It is located in central Costa Rica. One part of the group measured the surface area and the depth inside the volcano's center (this was not Nancy's part). Hers was to help prepare a gravitational map of a relatively large area around the volcano. The expedition was headed by two British volcanologists, and one wrote a book published about the project.
Nancy studied Mayan history and worked on a number of excavations of Mayan ruins in Guatemala and particularly in Honduras. She worked, by invitation, on some of her digs with the University of Pennsylvania and its Center Maya Research.
Nancy is survived by her husband, William H. Blaney, Jr. They were married 63 years. Her older son is James Alexander Blaney (56) and his wife is Martha Blaney. They have two children, Alexandra Blaney and Hanna Blaney, in their early twenties. Nancy's younger son is Jeffrey Blaney (54) and his wife is Ellen Zeff.
The family is grateful to Nancy's caregivers, especially The Cottage of Spring Branch, Jeffrey Lee, M.D., and Hospice Compassus.
A memorial service will be held February 11, 2011 at 2:00p.m. at the St. Francis Episcopal Church, 345 Piney Point Road, Houston, The Rev. Stuart A. Bates, Rector. Immediately following the service, all are invited to greet the family during a reception in a building adjacent to the church.
For those who desire to make a remembrance, please consider the following, each of which was especially important to Nancy: (1) St. Francis Episcopal Church, 345 Piney Point Rd., Houston, TX 77024 or (2) Southwest Health Technology Foundation, 5300 Memorial Drive, Suite 375, Houston, TX 77007 (Southwest focuses on neurofeedback, a non-invasive and non-medical self-regulation brain training method, particularly helpful to children in public school systems.)