Nancy Riford Turner

Nancy Riford Turner

Essex, CT/ - Nancy Riford Turner passed away peacefully Oct. 4 at her home in Essex, Conn. from complications following a stroke in May. She was 89. For more than 50 years in the Rochester area, Mrs. Turner was involved in a wide array of charitable organizations. Known for her unfailing graciousness and modesty, she loved books, travel, the arts and landscape gardens—including her own.

Born on a dairy farm in Auburn, NY, the daughter of Lloyd S. and Florence T. Riford, she graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in theater in 1950. On a blind date, she met her late husband Richard L. Turner, an ex-Marine from West Virginia who was finishing Yale Law School. They married in 1951 and moved to Rochester, where he became a partner at the firm now called Nixon Peabody. He became chairman of Schlegel Corp. in 1962. As she began raising four children, she acted in productions for the Junior League Children's Theater, playing Cinderella, for example, in 1958 at the Eastman Theatre and the School for the Deaf.

They acquired a dilapidated 1840 Greek Revival home at East Henrietta and Lehigh Station Roads, known as Elihu Kirby house. As the intersection became more commercialized, they decided to move the house to a virtually treeless five acres on Stoney Clover Lane in Pittsford, overlooking the canal and city to the north. The house was split down the middle and moved in two parts in a 3½-mile, 10-day journey which included getting stuck in the mud and making local headlines. With the help of eminent landscape architect Fletcher Steele, who lived in Pittsford Village, the once-empty plot became a renowned house and garden. In 1982, they were awarded the Mrs. Oakleigh Thorne Award by the Garden Club of America for outstanding landscape design. Mr. Turner, who by then was chairman and CEO of Schlegel Corp., passed away in 1986 at 60 years of age.

Mrs. Turner was deeply engaged in the Memorial Art Gallery, starting as a docent and serving as president of the Women's Council from 1968-70. She was equally active in the George Eastman House and Museum, where she was a trustee and led the restoration of its historic gardens in the late 1980s. She lent her energy and support to the Allyn's Creek Garden Club, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Genesee Country Village & Museum, the Hochstein Music School, the Arts & Cultural Council, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Rochester. She was a past and founding president of the Library of American Landscape History. She moved to New York City in 2004, then to Essex Meadows, a retirement community, in 2012.

She is survived by four children, Richard (Augusta Denunzio) of Mount Vernon, NY, Sally of Los Angeles, Jim (Dede Delaney) of Windham, Conn. and Molly (Tim Clark) of Lyme, Conn., nine grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and a brother, Lloyd Stephen Riford Jr. of Kihei, Hawaii.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Horizons, Inc., which works with people with special needs, P.O. Box 323, South Windham, CT 06266.