Nancy Gehman

Link to slideshow from funeral

Nancy Katherine Moore Gehman was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on February 4th, 1935. Williamstown is a historic, small town in the Berkshire Mountains, located in the rural western part of the state. A beautiful place to grow up. Her parents, Harwood (HD) and Lauretta Moore, owned and operated a combination washed sand and gravel plant/construction business/gas station. She had an older brother, Fred, and an older sister, Louise, who died in infancy. Nancy attended Williamstown Public School for her elementary years. In high school, she went to the Northampton School for Girls, a boarding school located in central Massachusetts. She applied and was accepted to Radcliffe College, but chose to attend Cornell University instead. Lucky for us, she did, as that’s where she met and married Harry Gehman, the father of her three children. Harry was working on a Master’s Degree in Geology; Nancy’s major? Political Science. She left college to support him, but continued her interest in Civil Rights and the world of politics.

She worked various part-time jobs and also accompanied Harry on field research, including trailer camping for weeks on the frosty shores of Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota. Harry got his Master's, his PhD, and then, a job with Humble Oil (Exxon), which landed them in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the kids were born.

In 1965, the family was transferred to Houston, Texas. For the next several years, Nancy busied herself with the usual housewife pursuits - sewing, cooking, macrame, helping out with the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, and playing bridge. While Nancy had always been interested in politics, it was after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr that her activism and dedication to justice really blossomed.

Through her church, Nancy found out about “Get Together” parties hosted by minority churches across Houston. Imagine people of all different races getting together at each other’s houses for parties, to meet each other, socialize, dance and have a good time. It wasn’t her idea, but she was all for it. Nancy and Harry hosted and helped organize many Get Togethers, bringing different people together over food, fun, and music. Changing the world, one party at a time. Nancy met many lifelong friends through Get Togethers.

From her Get Together friends, she learned that Black and Brown children in the minority areas of Houston had to pay a fee to swim in the city-owned neighborhood pools while children like hers in the suburbs got to swim for free. Not fair. Not just. She gathered evidence of the discrimination at the city swimming pool facilities and presented it to the Houston City Council. She was persistent, didn’t give up, and in the end, her work resulted in the city council voting to eliminate all fees at pools in minority areas. As the Houston Post put it in their June 14th, 1970 headline, it was the “Evolution of a Housewife, Making of an Agitator.”

Nancy became involved in Citizens for Good Schools (CGS), an organization that ran a slate of candidates for the Houston Independent School District Board of Trustees who were committed to completing the desegregation of Houston’s schools. This had not happened yet in any substantial way, even though the US Supreme Court had ruled against HISD nearly 2 decades earlier. CGS managed to get all 7 of their candidates elected to the board, and policies and programs were put in place that actually desegregated Houston public schools.

This led to Nancy’s neighborhood elementary school, Elrod, becoming desegregated. Nancy noticed that after school, the buses didn’t pick up the African American kids until after 5 pm, and that the school also hadn’t bothered to arrange for anyone to supervise the kids during that time. So, she volunteered to do it herself, five days a week, and got people to donate board games for the kids to play.

She got involved in city and county politics, too, and volunteered her organizational skills and political smarts to candidates she thought shared her beliefs.

She worked hard. Organizing people, coordinating events, phone calls, and fundraising.

She proved her worth and started getting paid for her skills. She met a former state legislator who was interested in running for County Commissioner in Harris County (Houston) Precinct 1. His name? Tom Bass. He needed a campaign manager, so he hired Nancy. She ran the campaign and he won the election.

Nancy went to work at Harris County Pct. 1 in 1973, and stayed until 1984. Taking on additional responsibility along the way, she was soon appointed General Superintendent in charge of Roads and Parks.. She was the first woman ever to hold this position in Texas.

At Pct. 1, she planned and developed many County parks. Her favorite? Christia Adair Park, which included a mural by renowned Houston artist John Biggers.

She oversaw the development of over 1400 acres of parkland as a multi-purpose recreational and flood control project.

She designed and completed the construction of the first comprehensive playground totally accessible to people with handicaps.

She also developed the County’s first hike and bike trails, using Flood Control right of way.

In the early 1980s, Nancy decided it was time for a change. She divorced and left Houston to follow the Moore family to northern New Mexico, where her brother Fred had relocated his family and business.

Nancy landed in Santa Fe.

It took a while to settle in, but she did – she started meeting new friends and got a new job. She became a sales representative for Triple A Alarm Company, a new and different challenge. She established their first Santa Fe office, provided project estimates from on-site surveys or blueprints, and developed sales prospects, participating in several professional and community organizations. She worked for many years at Triple A Alarms, all the while enjoying life in Santa Fe and beyond. She explored New Mexico, travelled the countryside. She hiked. She skied cross-country and took road trips with friends.

She enjoyed living near her mother, Lauretta; they visited often and regularly treated each other to lunch at Luby’s Cafeteria in Villa Linda Mall.

Through friends, one day, she was introduced to Jim Reilly, a charming former Air Force Vet. They married. (Actually, they eloped.) The marriage didn’t last long, but Nancy was left with some great memories.

She continued to work and lead her busy life, but over time, she was beset by health problems that eventually prevented her from working. She had to retire, but kept active.

Remodeling her house was the next project. She designed the space herself, building models and making drawings of the rooms and structure to communicate ideas to her contractor. The house turned out beautifully, she was very pleased with it..

But Nancy wasn’t done. She had found CASA.

By the early 2000s, she had grown tired of politics; the work had become too polarized. With Court Appointed Special Advocates CASA, she enjoyed working with children and had the chance to do something bigger than herself. She advocated for a small number of children over a long period of time. She was the one consistent adult in their lives, the one who was on their side. According to colleagues, she was a fierce advocate.

Her work with CASA brought her city-wide attention when she was named as “One Who Cares” by the Santa Fe New Mexican in 2017.

Nancy also found time to attend many courses through the Renesan Institute for Lifelong Learning. She especially enjoyed the New Yorker class.

Throughout her life, she sewed her own clothes, created original works of fabric art, embroidery, and tailoring. She loved a good movie and would walk out of a bad one. She enjoyed reading books, especially biographies. She never missed Book Club.

She travelled. In the last 10 years of her life, she visited New Zealand, Qatar, Greece, Iceland, and Texas.

And finally, over the last couple of years, Nancy wrote hundreds of letters and postcards encouraging people to get out the vote. She was working on the postcards up until the very end.

Nancy believed in her children and grandchildren and dearly loved each of them as much as she could.

She is survived by her children, Lisa Thorne and son-in-law Matt, Tracy Gehman, Scott Gehman and daughter-in-law Valorie; beloved grandchildren, Dila Thorne, Freia Thorne, Max Gehman, Nick Gehman, Joseph Gehman and granddaughter-in-law Samantha; great-granddaughter Iris Moon Grote; nephews, Tom Moore, Tim Moore, and W. H. (Bill) Moore.