SCARBOROUGH – Nancy Potter Bennett Davis died on March 29, 2024, in Scarborough. It was the death she had hoped for: on her bed after having her morning coffee.

Nancy’s 100-year journey began in Baltimore, Md. on May 19, 1924. She was the youngest child of Henry Bertram Potter and Lucy Jackson Dougherty Potter. Her sisters Virginia and Barbara were teenagers when she was born and her brother, Dick, was already in school, so there were few early playmates. Instead, Nancy befriended the people who worked in her home and the eccentric next-door neighbor with pet monkeys. Her deep curiosity about people’s lives, her appreciation for diversity of thought and experience, and her unparalleled conversational skills began here.

The entirety of Nancy’s schooling was at Roland Park Country School, a small school for girls. There she studied in classrooms with wide-open windows and enthusiastically participated in every sport offered. Nancy insisted this period endowed her with lifelong good health and excellent posture.

Nancy entered Wellesley College in 1942 and loved her years there. As World War II raged, she hoed in Victory Gardens, knitted scarves in psychology lectures, drank coffee day and night, and wrote letters to her brother, Dick and a certain dashing Navy ROTC Harvard man named Clark Bennett. Most importantly, she became part of a friendship group of nine women who, through their lives and across distances, supported and sustained each other with laughter and advice.

A week after graduating from Wellesley in 1946, Nancy married Clark and they set up house in Cambridge, Mass. For the next three years, Nancy put her AB in Sociology to work at Harvard University, administering psychological, interest, and ability tests to WWII veterans. When her first child arrived in 1949, Nancy focused her attention on building her family. Within five and one-half years, she and Clark had four children.

The next decade in Nancy’s life was a series of moving houses and tending children. Wherever the family relocated, Nancy used her enviable organizational skills to settle the house and its routines, and then she found her friends and activities. From Lexington, Mass., to Waterford, Conn., to Wellesley, Mass. (where the fifth and last child was born) to Cape Elizabeth.

In 1967, with her children in school, Nancy returned to the work force as a secretary in the Cape Elizabeth Junior High guidance office. She worked her way through various school positions, catching the attention of the school superintendent who encouraged her to get her degree in Guidance and Counseling. She graduated with her master’s from the University of Southern Maine Portland/Gorham in 1973. From then until her retirement in 1981, Nancy worked at Cape Elizabeth High School, first as a guidance counselor, and then as Director of Guidance. Later she would take great satisfaction seeing her former students going about their lives in the Cape.

Retirement opened new horizons for Nancy. She discovered rug hooking and the community of hookers. She travelled, both with family and with friends. She became “Nan”, grandmother extraordinaire. She volunteered for many organizations, with the Maine Audubon Society being a favorite for its focus on the environment. Nancy believed that we each bear responsibility for our planet and that the contribution of one individual makes a difference.

After Clark died in 1996, Nancy resigned herself to life as a single woman. Unexpectedly, a gentlemanly neighbor pursued her, and in 1999, she and Euan Davis were married. They spent eight happy years together until his death in 2007.

In the last year of her life, Nancy was graced with “a year of visits” from her family and friends. She was able to have conversations with each of her 15 grandchildren as well as many of her 32 great-grandchildren. Each visitor remarked on her clear mind and easy laughter. The culmination of the year was to be her 100th birthday party with her children (Peter Bennett, Martha Bennett Warren, Connie Bennett Blanchard, Jennifer Bennett Opel, and Amy Bennett Cracco), a cherished nephew (Christopher Milton) and their spouses. Instead, we will share remembrances of a life lived well. It seems fitting as she loved a good memorial, sometimes more than a party.

Nancy was astonished that she lived so long and so well. When asked for her secret she would credit fresh air, good friends, a curious mind, a lot of laughter, and, of course, her morning cup of coffee.

There will be a memorial service for Nancy on Saturday, May 18 at 1 p.m. at Hobbs Funeral Home, 230 Cottage Rd., South Portland.

Online condolences may be expressed at http://www.hobbsfuneralhome.com.

In lieu of flowers, you may wish to contribute to

Pollinator Partnership

(pollinator.org),

600 Montgomery St.,

Suite 440,

San Francisco, CA. 94111 or

Maine Audubon

(maineaudubon.org),

20 Gisland Farm Rd.,

Falmouth, ME 04105

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