Nancy Lambeth Montfort Bozdogan

Nancy Lambeth Montfort Bozdogan has gone to be with our Heavenly Father on May 20, 2025 after a long and hard-fought battle with Alzheimer's. Nancy was born at Morristown Memorial Hospital, in Morristown, NJ on Dec 17, 1944, to Lambeth Raymond Montfort and Helen Ross Gillespie Montfort. Nancy was preceded in death by her mother and father and older brother, Edward (Ed). She is survived by husband of 50 years, Dr. Hamparsum "Ham" Bozdogan, son Bedros Raymond and wife Dara Ayn and grandson Baron, son Kirkor Lambeth and granddaughter Myriam, brother William (Bill) Monfort, and numerous beloved nieces and nephews, and extensive relatives in the U.S., France, and in Turkey.
In her early years Nancy was who she was until the day she passed, a compassionate and welcoming friend to everyone. Being a younger sister to older brothers, Ed and Bill, who were 3 and 6 years older than her, she always attributed her dry, quick-witted sense of humor to be being the younger sister to older brothers. Many fond memories of her childhood were later passed to her sons spending summer vacations at the family lake home in the Poconos of Pennsylvania.
Nancy attended high school at The Beard School in Orange, NJ, where she excelled at lacrosse and field hockey garnering regional accolades in both sports. Upon graduating, Nancy enrolled at, what she always jokingly said was a small Christian school in Pennsylvania for small Christians, Westminster College, and two years later transferred to finish her undergraduate degree in sociology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, in 1968. Later, she received her master's degree from the University of Michigan in Medical Social Work.
Nancy met the love of her life, Ham, while she was working as a Social Worker at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI in 1972 when Ham was a first-year graduate student in the Department of Statistics at the University of Michigan. The love story as Nancy told her sons was always, "Your father joined the sailing club at the University of Michigan to learn how to sail, and I joined the sailing club to meet men."
Nancy and Ham married in 1975 at St. James Armenian Church in Evanston, IL and welcomed their first-born son, Bedros, in December of 1979, and their second son, Kirkor, in March of 1981. Nancy's entire world was her sons and was devout stay-at-home mom until they started grade school. She took a great deal of pride in the nurturing of her sons into being, using her words, "well-rounded boys", filling their childhood with an abundance of amazing adventures and experiences. From teaching the boys their hook shot in basketball to self-curated educational field trips to making the boys attend school with over 300 Japanese students when the family lived for close to a year in a suburb of Tokyo in 1988 (when Ham was a research associate professor in Japan), Nancy was force of a mother when it came to keeping her sons active and certainly stimulated. Nancy was not only an amazing mother to her two sons but also was a maternal figure to their friends. So much so, Bedros and Kirkor's friends nicknamed her "Aunt B".
As the boys got older, Nancy reintroduced herself into the workforce as a docent for a museum on the University of Virgina's campus and then a substitute teacher when the family moved to Knoxville, TN and ultimately finished out her career as a teacher's aide in special education at Farragut Primary School. In retirement, she devoted her time to her family, friends, neighbors, and the Citizens for Community Improvement of Friendsville (CCI), helping single mothers and families in-need in Blount County, TN.
Nancy had a her own stye of zest for life, the best sense of humor and comedic presence of a Saturday Night Live cast member, and a passion for travel, fun and adventure that was unmatched, but her most honored trait and quality will always be her empathy and care for the weak and less fortunate. The Bozdogan Family would like to also express their sincere gratitude to the staff at Life Care Center of Blount County (specifically Joie, Denise, Karla, Donicka, Stacy, Angela, Chelsea, and Chyna), for their care for Nancy in the last year of her life.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Nancy's memory to Alzheimer's Tennessee.
The family will receive friends on Sunday, June 1, from 3:00 - 4:00 pm at Rose Funeral & Cremation - Mann, 6200 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. The memorial service will immediately follow at 4:00 pm. Online condolences may be made at www.rosefuneraltn.com