Ethel Nance, former Elizabethton resident, passed away on September 28, 2011, in Austin, Texas, where she was living near her daughter and son-in-law, Joy and Larry Lacey.
Mrs. Nance was a homemaker and a member of the First Baptist Church of Elizabethton, Tennessee, where she was given the honor of church hostess. After the death of her husband, Fred L. Nance, she became Elizabethton’s City and Council Librarian for thirteen years. She received accolades for improving the size and quality of Elizabethton’s Libraries.
She moved to Orlando, Florida, to become the Medical Librarian for several years at the Orange Memorial Hospital (now Orlando Regional Medical Center). After her retirement, she traveled extensively with her husband, Louis Reichenbach, and daughter, Joy. The most memorable trips were to Europe, and returning to New York on both the Queen Elizabeth II, and the new Queen Mary II ocean liners. She loved visiting her son, John Frank Nance and wife, Betty, and their children in California. She also loved her Orlando home, with its over 100 flowering bushes, orchids and orange trees.
She is survived by her daughter, Joy Nance Lacey and husband, Larry, of Austin, Texas; her son, John Frank Nance and wife, Betty, of Covina, California, and their five children, Karen, Tracy, Lori, Sonia and Debbie, as well as great-grandchildren. She is also survived by nieces and nephews, Lois, Sue, Virginia, Eddie, Charlotte, Billie, Peggy Cornett, Mike and Connie Crumley and Jack Nance.
She is preceded in death by her parents, John and Minnie Belle Stevens, of Hampton, TN; her husband, Fred L. Nance, of Elizabethton; her husband, Louis Reichenbach, of Selinsgrove, PA; her sister, Pearl Collins and husband, Fletcher, of Elizabethton; her sister, Beth Winters and husband, Will, of Hampton; and her sister, Ruth Crumley and husband, Bufford, of Pensacola, FL. She is also preceded in death by members of her late husband Fred Nance’s family, her mother and father-in-law, Anna Belle and James Fredrick Nance, of Newland, NC; Earl Nance and wife, Vaughn; Ed Nance and wife, Mamie; Lawrence Nance, Dayton Nance, Ethel and James Cornett; Marie Cornett; Jim, Bobby and Martha Nance, all of whom she was very fond of. Two of her very special friends, Leona Fineout Knapp and Cora York, also preceded her in death.
Funeral services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2011, at the Tetrick Funeral Home Chapel, 211 N. Riverside Drive in Elizabethton. Graveside services will follow at Happy Valley Memorial Park.
