Avis de décès de Nancy-L. Walker - Nécrologie - MesAieux.com

Nancy L. Walker died at St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, on Thursday, November 30, 2006, after a prolonged illness. Nancy was born March 28, 1935, in Des Moines, Iowa. The family moved in 1940, first to Chicago's north side and then to the Des Plaines suburbs. Nancy graduated high school and entered Northwestern University in 1953. There, she met her future husband, David Yohn, and they were married on June 13, 1955. They had two children: Wayne Reed Yohn and Nancy Katherine Yohn. Nancy served as a teaching fellow and a teaching assistant at University of Hartford in Connecticut, earning a Master of Arts in English with distinction. She later became a faculty member and Dean of the Faculty at Franconia College in New Hampshire. She earned her Ph.D. in English from The University of Massachusetts in 1976. Nancy served at Missouri State University (Southwest Missouri State) as a Professor of English and Director of Freshman Composition from 1978 until her retirement in 2004. In 1987, she was awarded the prestigious Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award, and in subsequent years published in leading journals in composition, including Rhetoric Review and College Composition and Communication. She will be remembered most by the students whose lives she touched, particularly the students she mentored in her twenty-six-year role as Director of Freshman English. Her love of writing, her insightful teaching, quick wit and intelligence inspired the lives of teachers now scattered across the country and the world. In recent years, Nancy published essays- on subjects from the loss of her daughter to her 50th class reunion, her woodpile, her hospitalization and near death with pneumonia- in several distinguished journals: North Dakota Review, So to Speak, Missouri Review. Her work is also featured in the anthology Exposures: Essays by Missouri Women. Nancy is survived by her mother Frances L. Walker, and her sister Marilyn W. Coxon, both of the St. Louis area. She is also survived by her son, Wayne Reed Yohn II, of Carson City, Nevada. She was preceded in death by her father, Wendell C. Walker, and her daughter, Nancy Katherine Yohn. A memorial service will be held this Thursday, December 7, at 1 p.m., at the Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home, 1947 East Seminole in Springfield, Missouri. Flowers or cards may be sent to the Funeral Home, or donations in Nancy's name can be made to The Kitchen, 1630 North Jefferson, Springfield, MO 65803.