Lasting Memories

Nancy Marion Lobdell
Dec. 16, 1929-Aug. 19, 2018
Palo Alto, California

Nancy Marion Lower Lobdell, a Long Beach native who was active in a variety of community organizations in her hometown before spending her later retirement years in Palo Alto, passed away on Aug. 19, 2018. She was 88. Born on Dec. 16, 1929, Nancy Lower's first childhood memory was of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which damaged her home and forced her family to sleep in cars in the middle of the street.

Nancy's parents were charter members of the elegant Pacific Coast Club on East Ocean Boulevard, where the family often swam in the indoor pool, bodysurfed in the ocean (pre-breakwater days) and attended dinner dances. In the 1930s, Long Beach was still a young town, barely 30 years old. Nancy's family's first phone number had just five digits: 42113.

Nancy attended Los Cerritos Elementary School (along with several of her lifelong friends), Washington Junior High School, and Long Beach Poly High School, where she played the lead in the senior play.

"I always had the sense that we lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice friends and nice families," Nancy wrote in her memoir. "It was a good life. I think one reason it was good is that no labels were attached. Our house was definitely not the largest in the neighborhood. We didn't take the trips that some did. We didn't have an abundance of clothes during the lean [Depression] years but no one told us that we should feel sorry for ourselves, and it never occurred to me that I should."

A member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, she graduated from USC with a teaching degree. Nancy taught the fourth grade in the El Segundo Unified School District and lived in Hermosa Beach, where she met her future husband, Robert Charles Lobdell, while swimming in the ocean. How did she know Robert was the one? "I hate putting this in writing because your father may read it but one of the reasons was he was one of the few boys I dated that I thought was as smart as me,” she wrote.

The couple married in 1952 at the First Congregational Church in Long Beach and bought their first home on Roxanne Avenue in Long Beach for $11,400. Nancy and Robert remained together until Robert passed away in 2008, five days short of their 56th wedding anniversary.

In 1957, the Lobdells moved with their two young children, Terri and John, to the small town of Poland, Ohio after a corporate merger resulted in Robert taking a job in the legal department for the Youngstown Sheet & Tube steel company.

"Ohio, for a native Californian and for someone who had hardly been out of California, was like moving to a foreign country," Nancy wrote. "Fortunately, we were viewed as somewhat peculiar—after all, we were from California so the native tolerance level was raised."

While in the Buckeye State, the Lobdells had two more children, Bill and Jim. The Midwest experiment lasted eight years, before the cold and homesickness for California drove the family back to Long Beach in 1965.

After more than a decade as a stay-at-home mom, Nancy began her second career in the 1970s as a public relations specialist for California State University, Long Beach and was eventually promoted director of community relations, working for the Office of the President. She retired in 1986.

Nancy played an active role in local philanthropy, with the Junior League of Long Beach (she served as its president), St. Luke's Episcopal Church, the Long Beach Museum of Art and Fine Arts Affiliates (which supported the arts at California State University, Long Beach), among her favorite nonprofits.

In her retirement years, Nancy and her husband led annual art tours to Florence and the Tuscan countryside, and they became doting grandparents to their 12 grandchildren. In 2004, the couple moved to Palo Alto, where two of their children lived (the city also happened to be home to Robert's beloved Stanford University).

With Robert's passing, Nancy lived out her years at The Vi, a Palo Alto retirement community, where she was an active member. She also was a Sunday fixture at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto and had a special fondness for its rector, Rev. Matthew McDermott.

Nancy was survived by her brother, Bill; four children, Terri, John, Bill and Jim; son-in-law Bill Johnson; daughters-in-law Leslie MacDonald and Colleen Anderson; twelve grandchildren, Lisa, Peter, Nick, Heather, Maile, Taylor, Tristan, Matthew, Oliver, Lexi, Chris and Grace; great-grandson, Aaron; and nieces Missie Lewicki and Andrea Lower and their five children.