Nancy Priest Roe

Nancy Priest Roe, 92, passed away on Sunday, August 6, 2023 in Presque Isle, Maine. Nancy was born in Washington, D.C. on November 18, 1930, daughter of Verner Warren Clapp and Dorothy Ladd Clapp. She was left-handed, and proud of it!
At the age of 5, Nancy survived mastoiditis with the aid of blood transfusions - penicillin and other antibiotics not having been discovered at that time.
She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, Washington, D.C. in 1948 and from Vassar College in 1952, with a major in chemistry. At Vassar she was president of a synchronized swimming group called the "Swupper Club" (swimming and supper) where she was able to continue her love of swimming that she developed as a child at her family's camp on Wilson Pond in Wayne, Maine.
Following graduation, Nancy spent the summer in Denmark as a member of The Experiment in International Living. This experience began her lifelong interest in Denmark, and late in life she became passionate about genealogy, particularly as it involved her great great grandfather, Ludvig Verner Helms of Denmark.
On June 6, 1953, in Washington, D.C., she married Joseph H. Roe, Jr. whom she had met while on a blind date at Yale University. They recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
They raised their four children primarily in Reston, Virginia where Nancy was a community volunteer and was instrumental in the creation of the Reston branch of the Fairfax Library system, as well as the Reston Nature Center. As her children got older, Nancy returned to school and graduated with a Master's degree in Library Science from Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
In 1979 the family moved to Presque Isle where Nancy worked for 25 years in the Library at the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) as a Technical Services Librarian (Cataloger) and the Special Collections Librarian. She was on the board of the Mark and Emily Turner Library, was an active member of the Presque Isle Congregational Church, AAUW, and the Presque Isle Garden Club, and served as chairperson of SAGE (Seniors Achieving Greater Education) at UMPI. She was also in a Senior College Network group that beta-tested the Zoom platform in 2016 to expand the reach of education for seniors in Maine.
She was active in the Girl Scouts both in Virginia and Maine, and was proud to be a Lifetime Member, beginning as a Girl Scout in the 1940's, and taking on many roles with them over her lifetime.
Nancy can best be described as "Remarkable." She was an always curious life-long learner, a voracious reader and devotee of books and libraries, a lover of words and maps, a family historian who relished the stories of her courageous ancestors, and a mom and friend who went out of her way to make thoughtful connections to the people she cared about. From sending "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" texts to friends and family on the first day of each month, to curating a family genealogy book for her mother's side of the family, she was a storyteller at heart. In recent years, she cherished a small monthly writing group that included people from around the state that was, of course, held over Zoom.
She was ahead of her time in many things, from the importance of recycling and conservation, to being an early user of technology and the "strange new world of email" to connect, to becoming a champion of Zoom (way before any of us knew how important it would become) as a way of bringing people together. She was never afraid to lead the way.
She is survived by her husband, four children, Judith Roe, Rebecca Roe (husband Peter Michael), Peter Roe (wife Shelly Geasler) and Jennifer Roe (husband Nelson Mallory) and eight grandchildren and step-grandchildren, Susanna and Jonathan Michael, Bailey and Jamie Roe, Ella, Sara, and Kate Mallory, and Bryanna Alley, as well as her sister and brother-in-law, Judith and James Bromley, and their family, and her brother Verner Clapp's (previously deceased) wife Jessie and family.
Donations can be made in Nancy's memory to the Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library Charitable Trust, as well as the Girl Scouts of Maine.
There will be no services at this time. Arrangements in care of Duncan-Graves Funeral Home 30 Church Street, Presque Isle, Maine 04769.