It may take a long time for Jeanne Nash’s children to find out all of the things they didn’t know about their mother.
Nash, 78, died of heart problems at her Fort Collins home on May 29. She was involved in local and worldwide charities — knitting caps, making dolls and collecting books for kids in developing countries.
“We’re going through things, and I probably know only the tip of the iceberg about what she did,” said her son, Robert Nash of Omaha.
For a time Jeanne Nash had three sheep. She had someone else shear them, but she dyed the wool and made yarn for hats, mittens, dolls and animals.
“She went to the CSU (Colorado State University) games and even knitted there,” her son said.
Nash lived out her Quaker beliefs, said a friend, Gerry Wood Sullivan. One of those was “let my life speak,” said Sullivan, of Basalt.
“She knitted for the homeless in Fort Collins, knitted things for a maternity home in Guatemala and made miniature toys,” Sullivan said.
“She did things in the Quaker way, not proselytizing and never tooting her own horn,” said her daughter, Heidi Nash of Fort Collins.
Jeanne Nash made many miniature figures and houses for the Global Village Museum of Arts and Cultures in Fort Collins to show people how other cultures live and dress.
She always said if people knew about other cultures and peoples, they would see there were more similarities than differences among people and “that would lead to less conflict in the world,” said her daughter. “What radical thinking.”
Nash made trips to several countries — Cuba, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Iran — on cultural-exchange programs.
She would take books, toys, baseballs and mitts for kids in orphanages and bring back things people made in those countries for display in Fort Collins.
She even managed to take walking casts to areas with little medical care. “Without those, the people had to walk or ride a mule 2 or 3 miles to get medical care,” Heidi Nash said.
Jeanne Nash and John Roberts helped found the Global Village, and he’s now chairman of the board.
“She was the most patient, loving, giving person I ever met,” Roberts said.
Jeanne Haviland Lounsbury was born in Ithaca, N.Y., on April 26, 1933, and earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the University of Kansas.
She married Donald Joseph Nash on Sept. 4, 1954. He died in 2002.
In addition to her son and daughter, she is survived by another son, David Nash of Newburg, Pa., one grandchild and her good friend Don Smith.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
