Mary Teresa de Courcey Nash
9 September 1939 – 16 December 2023
FRYEBURG- Beloved local doctor and Fryeburg resident and legend, Dr Mary de Courcey Nash, passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
It is impossible to convey in words a life so fully-lived, so multifaceted, so productive, influential, and inspirational.
The eldest of 10 children, Dr Nash was born in Leamington Spa in England, of humble origins, a second mother to her many siblings, and like a sister to her many cousins in an extended Irish family. Her father Michael de Courcey died in the second World War leaving her mother, Frances, widowed with two children under 4 and expecting a third, soon to be Mary's baby sister Pauline. Frances' second husband, Frank Clarkson, became a father to Mary.
Unusually for the time, Mary started primary school aged 3 and a half. This was because each day Frances would take Mary and her younger brother Noel to the school where she worked as a cleaner. The nuns running the school said that, seeing as she was there anyway, she might as well attend classes. She won a scholarship to the local grammar school, Leamington College for Girls, where she excelled academically, at sports and across the curriculum, and became the first Catholic Head Girl at the College. Encouraged by her father, and exceptionally for a working-class Catholic girl at that time, she applied to medical school. This was always going to be an uphill struggle, with no-one actually expecting her to succeed in such a male, class-dominated field.
She was accepted into Leeds medical school in the north of England, and made an impression as a student of acute and wide-ranging intelligence, combined with deep compassion, qualities which would make her beloved throughout her life as a doctor. Medicine for her was a vocation, not just a job. During her time at Leeds Mary fell in love with the Yorkshire Dales. She joined the University walking club and went hiking every weekend. The Cow and Calf Rocks in Ilkley and Rievaulx Abbey near York were her favorite spots.
After graduating from medical school, she married Launcelot Charles Nash and made her home in South Molton, North Devon. They had four children, Macdara, Mary-Louise, Annabel and Marcus, to whom Mary was a devoted and fiercely proud mother, following all their achievements and successes with keen interest.
Following the family’s emigration to Ontario, Canada in 1973, they moved in 1975 to Maine, which has been her home since that time. As a family physician in Kezar Falls and Fryeburg ME, she went over and above what could be expected of a doctor, treating the whole person, and taking a lively interest in people’s lives and situations, making home visits in her own time, and keeping up lifelong relationships with patients and their families, often over three or four generations. At Christmas time the family kitchen table would fill with baskets of cookies and pies and fruitcakes from grateful patients. For Mary, a patient was never just a case study or a note on a computer. She was deeply loved and respected for her holistic style of medicine.
Mary was a close and loyal mentor to family members and friends and, for her, strangers were just friends she hadn’t met yet. She loved meeting new people and had a gift for introducing herself and making an immediate connection. Strangers would often tell her their life stories within moments of meeting her and she remembered every detail about everyone. She had a knack for making every person she met feel special.
“There’s one fair county in Ireland / With memories so glorious and grand.” In Mary’s case this was Connemara, County Galway, more specifically, Roundstone, Dolan, Murvey and Barna. Connemara was Mary’s “happy place”. She was adored by everyone in the area and a special friend to many there. Both as a child and adult she was a frequent visitor. She was well-known out on her daily walks and in the Roundstone House hotel and often seen sitting on a high stool next to the piano at the Abbeyglen, singing along with a gin and tonic. She had Celtic flair and the Irish love of of a good hooley!
A proud grandmother to six grandchildren, she had close relationships with all of them, in Brownfield, Concord, and South Africa.
She was devoted to her Catholic faith, which gave her great comfort and strength, especially towards the end of her life.
Doctor Nash died peacefully at home on Saturday, attended by family members, and is survived by her four children, Macdara, Mary-Louise, Annabel and Marcus, grandchildren Hana, Francesca, Sebastian, Patrick, Abigail and Bryce; plus siblings Noel, Pauline, Stephen, Eileen, Peter, Kevin, Geraldine and Michael and many nephews, nieces and cousins. She will be sorely missed.
A funeral Mass will place at Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, Fryeburg, on Thursday 21st December, at 1pm.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to Dana Farber to help fight cancer.
Make a Gift - Dana-Farber - Donate to Dana-Farber and help fight cancer | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (jimmyfund.org)
Arrangements have been entrusted to Poitras, Neal & York Funeral Home, Cornish, www.mainefuneral.com