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Nancy Jane Neill McCarry passed away in Ballston, Virginia on June 12, 2020 following a stroke.
A native of Lisbon, Nancy Neill was born on December 31, 1930 to her father John Pennock "Dick" Neill and mother Blanche Masters Neill. Nancy grew up in Lisbon with her sisters Joan, Susan, and Linda and graduated from Lisbon High School in 1948.
On September 12, 1953, Nancy married Charles McCarry of Plainfield, Massachusetts. Her husband was a reporter with the Lisbon Evening Journal at the time. When news of their engagement spread, men would stop her husband-to-be on the street to tell him, "I hope you know you are marrying the nicest girl in Lisbon."
In 1957, after her husband joined the Central Intelligence Agency, Nancy and her husband and their two young children, William and Nathan, moved to Europe. Over the next decade they moved from Spain to France, where her son Caleb was born, then to Switzerland, and finally Italy, where her youngest son John was born. Throughout these years, Nancy kept the secret of her husband's covert work for the CIA and cared for her four young children while her husband travelled for long periods under deep cover in Europe, Africa and Asia, including Vietnam during the war.
In 1967, the family relocated to Plainfield, Massachusetts where her husband pursued a new career as a writer for well-known magazines, including the National Geographic. In the following years, as her husband became a critically acclaimed novelist, Nancy was his confidant. She was always the first to read and comment on her husband's writing.
Nancy and Charles were inseparable. They climbed the Japan Alps, traveled the Honeymoon Trail in the Southwest by covered wagon, sailed Errol Flynn's yacht, Sirocco, in the Caribbean, and explored the upper reaches of the Amazon River. Later, they divided their time between winters in Florida and summers in East Otis, Massachusetts where Nancy's beloved family would gather. Asked to describe Nancy, family and friends all answer: she always gave love unconditionally. Charles passed unexpectedly in February 2019.
Nancy is survived by her sisters Joan, Susan, and Linda, her four sons and their spouses, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
6/20/20