Nancy Schwartz Hurd

Nancy Schwartz Hurd died peacefully on the solstice full moon of 22 December 2018. She was 91 years old. Born in New York City on 21 June, 1927 to Elinor Balke and Morton Lewis Schwartz, she was educated at Miss Hewitt's Classes, the Brearley School and Bryn Mawr, foundation of a life-long love of languages and theater. She married James Douglas Hurd in 1952 and they had three children: Madeleine Hurd of Abiquiu, NM, James Hurd of San Francisco, CA and Christopher Hurd of Washington DC. She studied landscape design at American University in the 60's, creating her own apparently wild but very cultivated garden at the family home on 28th Street and serving on the board of the National Arboretum in the 90's. She taught drama at the Field School in the 70's and researched and wrote about Henri Dunant, founder of the International Red Cross, but was unable to discover enough about the decades' lacunas in his life to publish. She maintained a constant interest in Jungian psychoanalysis as a basis of understanding biography, story and society. In her last fifteen years, she took up the study of Russian, having long spoken French, Italian and Spanish, with some foundation in classical Greek and Latin. She chose to be cremated. There will be a memorial this spring at Oak Hill Cemetary's Renwick Chapel.