Nancy Hagen Frank

After a long and active life, Nancy Frank passed away in her home in Concord, Massachusetts just a few months shy of her 97th birthday. She was born in Chicago to Angela and Oscar Hagen who had met and married after each immigrating from Norway to the United States in the early 1900s. Nancy maintained a deep pride in her Norwegian heritage, which she celebrated through many family traditions.

Having contracted polio at a young age, she endured many surgeries and treatments to maintain her mobility and independence. Despite those challenges, she was confident and unstoppable, proving over and over again that she would conquer anything she put her mind to.

Nancy attended Michigan State University and graduated with a bachelor’s in speech therapy. After graduation she worked in public schools helping children find their voices. She met Willam Frank while at Michigan State on a blind date on Friday the 13th. The date seemed to bring good luck and they married on June 26, 1954. Later, she would stop working to focus on building a home and starting a family. After supporting Bill’s career and return to graduate school, they moved to Ithaca, NY where Bill had accepted a professorship at Cornell University. They shared many adventures while Bill had teaching assignments in India, Switzerland, Australia, France and Norway. Finally, for better health care and residential options, they moved to Concord, MA in 2010. Their long marriage and partnership would last 57 years, until Bill’s passing in 2011.

While raising her children, Nancy was a force for good in her community, holding many volunteer and leadership positions including with the First Presbyterian Church, The Tompkins County Public Library, and The Hospital Auxiliary. She also led many Girl Scout troops as scouting was a lifelong passion.

Intellectually curious, she was an avid reader - sometimes devouring 20 books a month. She excelled at cooking and enjoyed feeding the neighborhood with homemade bread, jams, pizza, cookies, pies and cakes. She was also a talented seamstress, creating beautiful knit and embroidered pieces and making a lot of her children’s clothes (which wasn’t always met with enthusiasm by them!)

But what Nancy cared most about was her family – and friends who were just like family. She was loyal, devoted and loving. She was also passionate (even if that made her a little stubborn!) about what she believed in. Taken together, she was a generous soul who saw the good in people and tried to do right by all who came across her path.

Nancy is survived by her children Janet Watkins and her late husband John Watkins of Groton, NY, Kirsten Frank Kelly and her husband William Kelly of Grosse Pointe Park, MI, Thomas Frank and his wife Eleanor Frankel of Ithaca, NY and Nora Frank and her husband Walter Houseman of Arlington, MA. She also leaves behind her grandchildren: Catherine, Michael and William Kelly, Jeremy and Sylvia Frank, Isabelle and Carter Houseman and step-grandson Grant Watkins. She was also a loving aunt and great grandmother.

A private memorial service will be held at a later date. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Finger Lakes Land Trust (202 East Court Street, Ithaca, NY 14850). Or simply doing something nice for someone in need would be a wonderful way to extend Nancy’s generous spirit.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.