Nancy E. Brown
1938 - 2024
GAITHERSBURG, MD - On Thursday, October 10, 2024, Nancy E. (Wilk) Brown passed away quietly in her sleep at home at Asbury Village in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She was not in pain, and remained in good spirits and enjoyed a strawberry milkshake the evening prior.
Nancy was born in Brooklyn, New York and lived there until her father's Naval service moved the family to San Diego for a few years, and then to Hawaii for a year where she graduated from High School. The family returned to California, but to Long Beach this time. A year later, when the family moved back to Massachusetts, Nancy chose to stay in California, showing her stubborn independence as an 18 year old.
She did move briefly back to Massachusetts to be with family where she worked as a secretary for a paper company in Holyoke. The call of California, however, could not be denied, and so she moved back west, this time to San Francisco. There she met and married Howard Brown with whom she had two sons Paul and Michael.
Due to her husband's job, the family moved to the DC area in 1973 (at the height of Watergate). While her husband flew on ahead, she packed up and sold the house, and with two small boys and one cat in tow, drove solo from San Francisco to Washington, DC. Here Nancy settled in and quickly made many new friends, raised her sons, and began her career as a copy editor. In 1978 she and Howard divorced, but remained friends.
Over the years she traveled the world extensively, visiting Rome, cruising down the Danube, zip lining in Costa Rica, sipping tea in Istanbul (not Constantinople), often accompanied by family friend Brighetta Smith. Despite a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, she never lost her taste for travel and adventure.
Nancy was also an avid reader, and often read extensively about the many destinations she was planning. Many of her friends came from this passion, through the many book clubs she belonged to over the years. Reading, travel, family and friends, and strawberry milkshakes, life doesn't get lived much better than that.
Nancy is survived by her sons, H. Paul Brown and Michael A. Brown, and daughter-in-law Bobbie L. Brown, by her brothers John M. Wilk and Paul R. Wilk, and her nieces Susan Rosato, Leslie McBride, and Katti Paquette, and nephews Ryan Hollister and Jonathan Hollister. She was predeceased by her father John F. Wilk; her mother Eleanor R. Wilk, and her sister Eleanor "Ellie" Wilk-Hollister, with whom she will be interred.
Her family will receive friends on Saturday morning, November 2, 2024 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 am which will be followed by a Prayer Service at 10:30 a.m. at the St. Pierre - Phaneuf Fairview Chapels, (413-533-3307), 506 Britton Street, Chicopee, MA 01020. The parking lot is located in the rear of the funeral home. Her burial will follow the service at Saint Stanislaus Cemetery, 800 Montgomery Street, Chicopee, MA 01013. Nancy's family wants to invite guests to a celebration of her life at the Boathouse at Brunelle's Marina 1 Alvord Street, South Hadley, MA 01075 immediately following the burial service. Her family has requested that memorial donations be made in her memory to the Arthritis Foundation Massachusetts Chapter, 29 Crafts Street, Suite 450, Newton, MA 02458-1287. For more details and to leave her family condolence messages, please visit: www.stpierrephaneuf.com