Nancy Matlack Williams

Our precious momma gently sailed on to her next grand adventure on November 6, 2024. We surrounded her with the love she gave so freely and played “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison at her request. She was 78 years old.

Nancy Matlack Williams was born in Iowa City, Iowa on May 16, 1946 to George Miller Matlack and Meredith Madsen Matlack. She moved with her family to Los Alamos, New Mexico when she was still a toddler. Her childhood was filled with playing outdoors, Red Rover, paper dolls, and (of course) walking to school, uphill both ways, in the snow. She delighted in the New Mexico landscape, mesas, the Jemez Mountains, and the smell of piñon pine. 

While on a family road trip to the Grand Tetons in 1964, she passed through Logan Canyon and her heart was captured. She moved to Cache Valley for college and never left. She loved the mountains, the seasons, Bear Lake, and our father, Bryan Dee Williams, who also happened to be attending Utah State University. They married on January 2, 1971, and raised four children in beautiful Cache Valley.

Nancy worked at The Herald Journal from 1976 to 1983 as a writer and editor of the Focus section and editor-in-chief of its weekly magazine, Valley. In 1984, USU offered her a teaching assistantship while she pursued a master’s degree. She went on to become an assistant professor in the school’s Journalism and Communication department. During graduate school she developed and taught the department’s class in newspaper production and design, and redesigned its weekly paper, The Cache Citizen. She also helped develop the department’s famous “boot camp” public affairs reporting class.

She led The Cache Citizen to recognition by the National Newspaper Association as one of 128 Blue Ribbon Newspapers in the nation, and twice to General Excellence in the Utah Press Association’s annual Better Newspaper competition. She won regional and national awards for every category of writing and editing except sports, which she avoided like the plague.

She taught a variety of classes during her 28 years at USU, including copy editing and newspaper design, media ethics, community journalism, media smarts, and opinion writing, but she is best known for her public affairs reporting class. As an emerita professor, she won the “Rusty Spike” Ted Pease Award, the Clifford P. Cheney Service to Journalism Award, and established the Nancy Matlack Williams Student Intern Scholarship for Utah Public Radio. She counted everyone as a friend, students and colleagues alike. She did all she could to help everyone bloom where they were planted while still exploring their potential.

As a mom, Nancy was the river that kept our paper boats afloat, and the hands that created the easels on which we painted our own lives. She was the master chef that carefully curated our love for chile, and solidified our belief that green is always superior to red. She was our cheerleader when we needed encouragement, a soft shoulder when comfort was in order, and a magician who helped heal our broken hearts with a cup of hot tea, a strong toddy (when necessary), or a really good story.

She was an avid birder and could often be found on Sunday birding drives near Benson. She loved hiking and traveling, fresh garden tomatoes, a good book, bee keeping, summer G&Ts, and her sweet kitties, Louie and Miss Janeypants. She was a fabulous self-taught musician, and her beautiful voice was integral to the First Presbyterian Chancel Choir for many years. She was a founding member of her local chapter of Threshold Choir and after several years of gifting song to hospice patients, received their tender singing at her own bedside. Mom was a lover of traditions. In northern New Mexico, there is a long-held distinction between a farolito, a small paper lantern, and a luminaria, a small bonfire. Mom loved Christmas and the tradition of farolitos on Christmas Eve. Light one, or many, for her this year.

Honor her memory. Find a real newspaper, pour yourself a cuppa, and sit in the sun while it pours through a window. Get newspaper ink on your fingers and read, knowing that our momma, and your friend, is sitting with you. No matter how you knew our mother, one thing is certain: she changed our lives for the better, leaving stories, knowledge, and art with us all.

“We are here, and this is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.” – H. L. Mencken

Shine on Moonbeam. Dance in the stars, sweet Momma.

Nancy is survived by her husband, Bryan Dee Williams and her children, Elisabeth Williams, Johannah Williams (Shannon Havins), Patrick Williams, and Anna Williams; grandchildren Asa Evans, Analia Evans, Ian Thompson, Kade Thompson, William Thompson, Jac Thompson, Aiken Silver, and Wesley Silver; a brother, Martin Matlack (Priscilla), and sister, Christine Ward. She was preceded in death by her parents George and Meredith Matlack, and her brother, Allyn Matlack.

A celebration of life will be held in her honor in May 2025. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to USU’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Research Center (ADRC): https://cehs.usu.edu/adrc. Arrangements are under the direction of White Pine Funeral Services, https://my.gather.app/remember/nancy-williams-2024