Harris

Nancy T. Harris, 86, of Slippery Rock, passed away peacefully at Grove Manor Nursing Center in Grove City on Thursday, March 13, 2025, after a long illness.

She was born on June 5, 1938, in Providence, R.I., to Gilbert F. and Stella M. (Adams) Tyler, both of whom predeceased her. Not long after her birth, the young family moved to the neighborhood of Jamaica in Queens County, New York City, where Nancy attended public schools, later graduating from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1959 with a degree in English.

At Bates, she met and later married in 1961 Kenneth Harris, with whom she would share 63 years of happiness. Ken and the two children they raised, Jennifer Brady with her husband, Charles, in Hudson, Ohio, and David Harris, Camp Hill, Pa., survive.

Nancy was employed at Slippery Rock University as a secretary in the Department of Political Science, an assignment she found rewarding and satisfying. She retired in 2000, the same year Ken also retired from the university faculty.

To nearly the end of her days, Nancy was an avid reader of fiction and nonfiction. She began, but didn’t finish, her last read, a memoir about an English woman who finds, saves and loves a wild creature abandoned shortly after its birth. The book, “Raising Hare,” was published in America only 10 days before Nancy passed away.

She loved to garden and to cook. She played party bridge for years, always claiming she was not very good at the intricate card game but genuinely loving the companionship the friendly competition offered.

She served her church in Slippery Rock as a Sunday school teacher, a trustee and in several terms as a deacon. She served on one pastor search and nominating committee, a critical post of great sensitivity and importance to the congregation. She coedited a volume of remembrances of her college classmates published for the 50th anniversary of their graduation.

With her husband, she traveled to Switzerland, England and Scotland, Costa Rica, Norway, Alaska, and Hawaii. There were only two mainland states where they had not been, some of the others, of course, on the way to other destinations.

In addition to her husband and children, Nancy is survived by her brother, Gilbert, and his wife, Virginia, of South Glastonbury, Conn.; and four grandchildren, Claire and Leah Brady and Andrew and Allison Harris. Sister-in-law, Rosanne Harris, survives in Flower Mound, Texas. There are cousins, nephews and nieces, together with their children, scattered in the New England states, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, Florida and Paris, France. She regularly mailed greeting cards to friends across America and sympathy cards for distressed people in her church and community.

People who knew Nancy well speak of her kindness, thoughtfulness and modesty. She engaged quietly in efforts to support peace and was always concerned mightily for the needs of others, dismissing questions about her own well-being. “I’m OK,” she’d say. She knew how to live and how to die in the Spirit.

HARRIS — There will be an opportunity to greet the family of Nancy T. Harris, who died Thursday, March 13, 2025, from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 4, at SMITH FUNERAL HOME, 421 New Castle St., Slippery Rock.

There will be a celebration of Nancy’s life at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 5, at Center Presbyterian Church, 211 Center St., Slippery Rock, with the Rev. William Mumaw officiating. The Saturday event will be livestreamed on the church’s YouTube site.

Please sign the guest book at www.butlereagle.com.