NANCY DOWNEY

DOWNEY--Nancy Adams. Nancy Adams Downey, passed away surrounded by family, friends, music, gratitude, and love on July 10, 2025 at Lenox Hill Hospital (where she received superlative medical care) due to a rare, fast- moving cancer. With ancestors dating back to New York's first Dutch settlers, Nancy made Manhattan her primary home for nearly all of the 83 years of her joyous and generous life. Born to Daniel Putnam Adams and Adelaide Barkley Koop Adams on January 28, 1942, Nancy Jackson Adams attended the Brick Church School, Nightingale Bamford, Miss Porter's and Bradford Junior College. At Bradford she was a member of the a capella singing group, Tabooz, where the approach to harmony that she learned from her father became second nature. After college and Katherine Gibbs, she joined the securities firm A.G. Becker as secretary to one of its top executives. She subsequently shifted her focus to motherhood, homemaking and community building. Survived by her eternally devoted husband of 63 years, Robert (Bob) N. Downey, their four children, Anne Paddock Downey, Nathan (Nate) Adams Downey, Daniel (Jack) Jackson Downey and Elizabeth (Liz) Downey Silberstein, nine grandchildren, and many cousins, nieces, nephews, sons-, daughters- and siblings-in-law, and a wide circle of close friends, Nancy shared her loving spirit, youthful exuberance and maternal instincts with everyone she met and, as a result, became a second mother to many. In 2021, Nancy was preceded in death by her younger sister Marjorie Adams, who spent years educating the world about their great-grand- father, Daniel "Doc" Adams, M.D., who wrote the Laws of Base Ball and presided over the 1857 convention which adopted his Laws, officially setting the number of players and innings at nine and the distance between bases at 90 feet. Nancy helped Marjorie in her quest to secure Doc's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three months after Doc was two votes shy of the required 75% needed for induction, the original copy of Doc's Laws sold for $3.2 million. The next generation will continue the quest for Doc's induction. Through much of the 1970s and 1980s, Nancy and Bob typically took home the Badminton Club of the City of New York's (founded in 1878) mixed doubles champion cup. Nancy and Bob served continuously on Dartmouth College's President's Leadership Council from its inception in 1987. Though Nancy graduated from college well before women were admitted to Dartmouth, she was deeply devoted to Bob's alma mater in part because three of her children attended and her great-great-grandfather Daniel Adams, M.D. (Doc's father) was a distinguished graduate of Dartmouth and its medical school in the late 1790s. She also served on various other nonprofit boards including many years with the Girls Scouts Council of Greater New York and the Aloha Foundation in Fairlee, VT. In addition, Nancy had a life-long love of music starting with singing and playing the ukulele at Camp Hanoum in Thetford, VT. In recent years, she revived her love for the ukulele. Whenever Nancy could, she would play, sing and harmonize with her friends and family. Nancy and Bob first visited the Trail Club in Carmel, NY in the late 1960s and became members of the Club when they purchased a home there in 1977. They have been devoted to the Trail and their Trail Club friends ever since. In the early 1990s, Nancy took on the challenge of skiing the slopes of Keystone, Colorado, and by mid-decade, she was ranked in her age category as one of America's top female NASTAR ski racers. She later embraced the title of "Nini" to her grandchildren: Guinevere, Addie, Nora, Liam, Keenan, Logan, Caroline, Jax and Julianna, whom she cherished and visited as often as she could in New York, New Hampshire, Colorado and New Mexico. Nancy had an absolutely radiant smile and positive, energetic approach to life. She tirelessly supported and brought together her family, friends, and every community she was a part of, including her Keystone and Trail Club communities. An exceptional human: patient, polite, kind, fun, smart and strong, her loss could not be more devastating for those who knew her, even though they also realized they were the luckiest beings in the universe for having known her. A private burial service took place at Woodlawn Cemetery. A celebration of Nancy's life will occur at a time and place to be determined. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be given to Lenox Hill Hospital or Dartmouth College.