Nancy passed away without pain, in the loving presence of husband Bill, daughter Marian, and son in law Bob at 1:05 a.m. on January 24, 2009, in her bed in the family home of 38 years at 3239 9th St. in Boulder, Colorado. This date is 5 months to the day shy of her and Bill's 50th anniversary.
True to form, my mother worked on projects up until she fell asleep, then slept a few hours, then died. The final project she was working on was the ancestors chapter of her ever-expanding LifeBook project. Lying in bed with a clipboard and photocopied versions of dozens of photos of her ancestors, she worked at captions and descriptions up until 10 p.m. Marian and Bob continued working past midnight on the tasks my mother had delegated to them. The night before she had been up at 3 a.m. pushing hard to make more progress on the same project. At the hospice meeting on Thursday January 22nd she was lying on the couch to be part of the meeting but also sewing miniature blankets for miniature horses for the stable she is passing on to her descendants. Now she joins the ancestors chapter.
The obituary she worked on follows. She departed giving love, receiving love, and doing what she loved. "Once I get an idea, I won't rest until it's done." My mother said this to me the night she died. Now she is on to her final project, of being at peace.
Anyone wishing to offer meals support can coordinate with my wife Catherine Childs at 303-415-9396.
Remembrances, thoughts, stories, tributes -- anything written, or audio or visual, can be sent to my email directly, and please cc Marian at mdoub@mindspring.com. (If the the files are over 5 MB, please use www.SendUit.com.)
Nancy's LifeBook will include a CD with audio recordings and images. And the special wood box Catherine gave Nancy is where we are keeping printouts of all email, blog, and US mail contributions, and a flash drive of audio and visual files.
Please indicate if what you send is OK to share with the community. If so, I will post what you send to this blog. (This is a way to not have to hassle with the blog comment procedure, a headache none of us needs!)
Nancy Carlson Doub
Nancy Platt Carlson Doub died at home at the age of 71 of uterine sarcoma on January 24, 2009. She was born in Jamaica, New York, on November 23, 1937, the third daughter of Elizabeth Josephine Platt Carlson and Rolland Douglas Carlson, both of Minnesota and now deceased. After attending P.S. 35 and Jamaica High School she left her home in Hollis, Long Island, to attend Pomona College in Claremont, California, graduating in 1959 with a major in English literature and minor in art.
A resident of Boulder since 1970 except for a year in Kyoto and the last ten years living half of each year near Grass Valley, California, Nancy felt that following her bliss led her to some amazing places, both geographically and figuratively. The journey began with her marrying William Coligny Doub (Bill) in Germany the summer of 1959 and from there with him to Palo Alto, Taipai, Seattle, Kyoto, and Williamsburg before settling in Boulder.
Nancy and Bill have been blessed with two caring and enterprising children, Marian Doub, now of San Francisco, and Eric Lin Doub of Boulder, their spouses Robert Thawley and Catherine Childs, and grandchildren Aidan Thawley and Ariel and Brian Doub. The family has remained close and united in working for social justice and environmental causes, and Nancy was proud to have risked jail by standing up to be counted in opposition to the Vietnam and Iraq wars and the production and use of nuclear weapons. In Japan the family was briefly part of the Beiheiren (League of Peace for Vietnam) underground railroad helping G.I. deserters escape through Japan to Sweden. In Boulder she was active with the Rocky Flats Truth Force while opposing the nuclear weapons plant at Rocky Flats. Mostly, however, Nancy was not particularly active politically, except for the twelve years Bill and she edited and published the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, an international radical scholarly journal that enabled them and others, they felt, to speak truth to power about issues often ignored or misrepresented in the mainstream media.
Even though until he retired Bill’s career determined where they lived, Nancy generally managed to pursue her own priorities wherever they were. Throughout she took particular pleasure in working with children, being outdoors and part of nature, and creating things. Nancy thrived on “creating castles in the air and then putting the foundation under them”—in short, thinking of things to create and then feeling compelled to bring them into being for the benefit of her family and community. This involved projects such as play equipment (at a cooperative preschool in Seattle, with a Foothill Elementary P.T.S.A. team building a now defunct tunnel hill in Boulder, a tree house and pirate ship bunk bed for her grandson in San Francisco, and play area with a zip line at her home in California), a Japanese-style bathroom, and a waterfall and pond in Boulder.
At other times Nancy tended to follow her interests serially with great absorption and passion and then move on. In Japan it was flower arranging, Japanese gardens, and the traditional Japanese aesthetic, while in Boulder it was a revival of childhood enthusiasms for tennis and riding horses, even earning local and regional rankings in both tennis and showing hunter-jumpers. While doing this she was a member of the Boulder Tennis Association (B.T.A.), Boulder Valley Racquet Club, and the Harvest House Sporting Association for the tennis, and the Boulder and Colorado Hunter-Jumper clubs for the riding. During the most recent ten years Bill and Nancy dedicated themselves to stewardship of the earth at their “off the grid” second home surrounded by more than thirty-five acres of forest in California by growing their own vegetables and fruit and thinning the forest to make it healthier and less vulnerable to fire.
Overall Nancy felt she had a rich and fulfilling life, and she was happy following where her bliss led her. Nancy’s only regret was that with her many interests and intense way of doing things she never felt able to be the elementary school teacher she had planned to be. However, she did earn her teaching credential from the University of Colorado in 1975 and worked with children in various capacities for many, many years—among them as an English conversation teacher at Doshisha High School in Japan, child care worker at Wallace Village in Broomfield, Tennis Tots teacher at the Boulder Valley Racquet Club and satellite programs, a volunteer tutor with the Learning Abilities Program and Girl Scout leader at Foothill School in Boulder, and teaching assistant at Halcyon School and Uni Hill Elementary School in Boulder.
Nancy is survived by her sisters Ruth Mullaney of Williamsburg, Virginia, and Joyce Carlson-Leavitt of Albuquerque, New Mexico, husband, children, their spouses and children, as well as nine nieces and nephews and many less-known relatives.
A celebration of Nancy’s life will be held on February 16th, 2009 at 1 pm at the Chautauqua Community House, and all are welcome. Many, many thanks to the incredible number of friends as well as family who supported her during her relatively brief illness. Certainly no more need be done, but if someone wants to make a donation in Nancy's name in lieu of flowers it can be made to the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, P.O. Box 1156 Boulder, CO 80306, www.rmpjc.org 303-444-6981. Later in the spring friends and family will celebrate her life and scatter her ashes at Nancy and Bill’s home in Camptonville, California.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"I wouldn't be able to enjoy all this [outpouring of stories, caring cards, meals, recollections] if I were already gone."
It has been truly remarkable and wonderful, all that has come forth since the December prognosis of "a few weeks to live." I have been thinking about this: At services we have all been to, it is amazing what people recall and describe in their tributes. Eloquent, specific, funny, complete, beautiful speeches are what I have experienced at services / celebrations.
Now I have realized that there is nothing like announcing you have a short time to live to inspire such energy and contributions. My mother has expressed a number of times how much better it is this way, to hear and feel all this love and affirmation. "I wouldn't be able to hear and read all this at my service."
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who have sent meals, thoughts, cards, books, made visits, talked on the phone, and on and on.
My mother is the ultimate Project Woman, and today she announced she is "done done done" with the biggest tangible work product in this phase of her life: Recording life stories on the digital microrecorder. We have sent off the recordings to be transcribed, and if the printed text comes back in time for her to work on it, the proclamation of "done" may be modified...depending on her energy to sit up and work.
Related to the autobiography is the sorting, labeling and distributing of photos. Photos have to go to people, or into the LifeBook, or be identified and prepped for the memorial service.
A smaller project (literally) has been lying in bed sewing tiny horse blankets for the miniature horses that go in the stable from her childhood. This stable is at Oak Meadow and has been enjoyed by the three grandchildren, and will continue to be enjoyed by this generation and beyond. Other final touches the stable is getting from Nancy include bedding for the miniature people characters. No, doing the miniature creations for the stable is not doing forest fire mitigation on 35 acres, or harvesting orchards, or gardening and canning, or building playgrounds, but it is a project in the classic Nancy spirit.
Wouldn't it be just like her to write and edit her own obituary? Well, that is what she has done. Not one version of the document but three: One longer version for the family; one for the Boulder Daily Camera; and one for the Grass Valley (CA) Union. Accuracy and thoroughness seem to be prevailing right through to the end.
"Now I can slip away..." -- that's a quote from this morning after finishing the audio recordings. Medically and physiologically speaking, that final slide seems to be underway. Status check: Going across the hall to the bathroom is a major energy drain; every day there are fewer minutes than the day before to talk, visit, and even sit up. "I can feel the fluid and cancer up into here" -- another quote from today, as my mother gestured to her upper chest. Every day there is less energy and less function in all ways, although at the moment she can still shower, eat delicious and rich soups and broths, and go for wheelchair strolls in the balmy January weather (low 70s today!). She weighs about 122 pounds now, down 15 pounds in a month. "The final weight loss program," was the black humor from earlier today. It is a blessing that she is not in physical pain.
On her clipboard on the bed this last 2 weeks is a list of people and phone numbers, people she wants to call and say good bye to. Many of you may have had such phone calls with her. As to visits, these are an ever scarcer resource.
Meals coordination is still being done by my wife Catherine Childs, 303-415-9396.
It is still the protocol to call Marian at 415-730-1873 for visits or calls.
Now I have realized that there is nothing like announcing you have a short time to live to inspire such energy and contributions. My mother has expressed a number of times how much better it is this way, to hear and feel all this love and affirmation. "I wouldn't be able to hear and read all this at my service."
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who have sent meals, thoughts, cards, books, made visits, talked on the phone, and on and on.
My mother is the ultimate Project Woman, and today she announced she is "done done done" with the biggest tangible work product in this phase of her life: Recording life stories on the digital microrecorder. We have sent off the recordings to be transcribed, and if the printed text comes back in time for her to work on it, the proclamation of "done" may be modified...depending on her energy to sit up and work.
Related to the autobiography is the sorting, labeling and distributing of photos. Photos have to go to people, or into the LifeBook, or be identified and prepped for the memorial service.
A smaller project (literally) has been lying in bed sewing tiny horse blankets for the miniature horses that go in the stable from her childhood. This stable is at Oak Meadow and has been enjoyed by the three grandchildren, and will continue to be enjoyed by this generation and beyond. Other final touches the stable is getting from Nancy include bedding for the miniature people characters. No, doing the miniature creations for the stable is not doing forest fire mitigation on 35 acres, or harvesting orchards, or gardening and canning, or building playgrounds, but it is a project in the classic Nancy spirit.
Wouldn't it be just like her to write and edit her own obituary? Well, that is what she has done. Not one version of the document but three: One longer version for the family; one for the Boulder Daily Camera; and one for the Grass Valley (CA) Union. Accuracy and thoroughness seem to be prevailing right through to the end.
"Now I can slip away..." -- that's a quote from this morning after finishing the audio recordings. Medically and physiologically speaking, that final slide seems to be underway. Status check: Going across the hall to the bathroom is a major energy drain; every day there are fewer minutes than the day before to talk, visit, and even sit up. "I can feel the fluid and cancer up into here" -- another quote from today, as my mother gestured to her upper chest. Every day there is less energy and less function in all ways, although at the moment she can still shower, eat delicious and rich soups and broths, and go for wheelchair strolls in the balmy January weather (low 70s today!). She weighs about 122 pounds now, down 15 pounds in a month. "The final weight loss program," was the black humor from earlier today. It is a blessing that she is not in physical pain.
On her clipboard on the bed this last 2 weeks is a list of people and phone numbers, people she wants to call and say good bye to. Many of you may have had such phone calls with her. As to visits, these are an ever scarcer resource.
Meals coordination is still being done by my wife Catherine Childs, 303-415-9396.
It is still the protocol to call Marian at 415-730-1873 for visits or calls.
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