Nancy Crenshaw Smith

Nancy Sampson Crenshaw Smith was born in 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Elisabeth Sampson Cluverius Crenshaw and John (Jack) Stewardson Crenshaw. She died in Anchorage, Alaska, at the age of 94. She had younger twin sisters, Lisa Cluverius (deceased) and Kathy Brieger. All were encouraged by their powerhouse mother to be artists, and she fostered in them a love of nature, the outdoors, and physical activity. Nancy's childhood was shaped by her father's role as a US Navy Officer who rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. The family lived in many places including Hawaii and Berlin, Germany. Postwar Berlin in 1947 had an intense influence on Nancy at 17 and she retained vivid memories and grief about it for her entire life. The girls and their mom spent some of their happiest days in Rancho Santa Fe and Coronado (California) and Sedona (Arizona). Above all, Nancy loved Hancock Point, Maine, where her forebears had spent summers since the 1900s. Every cool, green place prompted her to exclaim with longing, "Oh, shades of Maine!"

She and Ronald Eugene Smith (d. 2018) were introduced in 1948 by fellow members of the Hiking Club at Cal (UC Berkeley). Nancy was a lifelong backpacker while Ron discovered its joys in college. Nancy and Ron married in 1952. Their happiest times were spent camping, hiking, and backpacking in the Eastern Sierra, where they settled in 1958 when Ron began teaching math at Bishop Union High School. They passed on to their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids their love of the Sierra, backpacking, the outdoors, and nature.

Nancy and Ron raised three children, Jenny, Pam, and Scott, in Wilkerson, 7 miles south of Bishop. Nancy remembered that the isolation of their home meant that her "early family life was sort of lonely." With time, she developed treasured friendships with many in the area. Nancy had broad interests, openness to new ideas, and a lively curiosity about other cultures. Having majored in anthropology, she went on to participate in archaeological digs around the Owens Valley. The children came too, and developed a lifelong interest in different peoples and cultures.

Ron and Nancy were avid readers, and Nancy continued this passion through audio books when she lost most of her sight in later life, racing through books in whole-day listening binges. She was still listening to audio books in the days before she died. She loved plein air sketching and painting, and doing anything outside, from hiking to camping, and even hanging laundry! She was a teacher aide and art teacher in elementary school, and delighted in helping kids, especially with drawing.

Nancy found deep joy in worship and service within the community of St. Timothy's Anglican church in Bishop. She lived her love for Christ through her compassion for people, animals and nature, and her awe in the face of beauty of all kinds. Nancy's love of animals was especially evident in her ability to "whisper" vicious-seeming guard dogs into tail-wagging begging for affection.

Nancy and Ron loved road trips, often visiting family on the California coast. Many times they drove across the country to the family house in Maine, and after retirement sometimes stayed from May to December. They enjoyed exploring Australia with their kids during Ron's two-year teaching stint there. Later, when the "kids" resided in various parts of the world, they happily visited them. Her final two years were spent close to three generations of family in Alaska, a place she had yearned to visit since childhood.

It was in Australia that Nancy fell into writing poetry. She said, "Poetry was a way to weave together the disparate strands and pieces of my life... Each...life has music in her soul."

Foremost among Nancy's many strong and memorable characteristics was perhaps her love of learning. She never ceased thinking, speaking her mind, and always struggled mightily, sometimes in the midst of severe personal emotional stress, to learn more about herself, others, and the world around her.

Gifts in memoriam may be made to Wildcare Eastern Sierra.