JASNA Southwest board member Nancy Ramsey passed away on August 15 after a long battle with lung cancer.
Nancy grew up in Burbank and Lancaster with her siblings Robert and Sue. As an adolescent, she was an avid horseback rider and dreamed of traveling to exotic places and living in a rainforest. In 1967, at the age of 15, she moved to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco to become part of the hippie counterculture. Soon after she graduated from Hollywood High School, she married Richard Carter. After just three years of marriage, Richard died suddenly, leaving Nancy a young single mother of two. In 1971, she met Jerry Alan Ramsey, a trial attorney. They married on July 4, 1976.
The couple enjoyed sailing on the family’s vessel Liberty as well as snow skiing. Nancy enjoyed being a soccer grandmother as well as taking her grandkids on trips to Las Vegas and Disneyland, teaching them to sew and attending numerous extracurricular activities.
True to her earlier dreams of travel, Nancy enjoyed trips with Jerry throughout Europe with return trips to the United Kingdom, Ireland, French Polynesia, the Adriatic Sea, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Nancy graduated from UCLA with undergraduate and graduate degrees in history before attending the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, where she graduated with several honors and was admitted to the California state bar in 1995. She began her legal career at Greenberg and Panish, then became a senior associate at McKay, de Lorimier & Acain, where she worked for 15 years. In 2014, Nancy and Jerry opened Ramsey & Ramsey, where they specialized in estate planning. Jerry passed away in April 2015. Nancy continued her work in estate planning after Jerry’s passing.
In 2009, Nancy joined the Jane Austen Society of North America and she became increasingly active in the ensuing years. She served on the steering committee for the 2017 Annual General Meeting in Huntington Beach and joined the JASNA Southwest board in 2018. She was also a constant presence at the JASNA Southwest booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, even this year when she was ill. She was always among the first to volunteer for any important task that needed to be undertaken. She also enjoyed being a JASNA book club member and gathering with other friends who share a love of all things Austen.
What started as a hobby of making Regency gowns, reticules and bonnets turned into her iblamejanetoo site on Etsy. Nancy was passionate about the artistry of creating beautiful gowns that others would treasure as well. She often dressed in Regency attire for the Festival of Books and other gatherings. She enjoyed being part of the JASNA summer tours to England and cherished the opportunity to travel with her niece, Janna Noyes, on the July 2019 trip.
Nancy is survived by her children Robert, Laura and Andrea; stepchildren Michael and Rebecca; grandchildren Robert, Ryan, Alexandria, Riley, Rhianna, Raymond, Anthony, Danielle and Little-Little Robert; niece Janna; and dogs Koda and Molly.