Nancy Deacon Obituary

Nancy Burnham Deacon, 91, passed away peacefully on November 7th in Petaluma, California. She was in the presence of her son and daughter, and the love and support of the Little Bird Assisted Living family.

Born into the Burnham family of San Diego, California in 1927, she resided in Chula Vista with her parents, Mary Maud Hollington Burnham and Marston Burnham. Attending Bishops School in La Jolla, and then UC Berkeley, where she met and married Richard Evans Hogan, from Oakland, CA in 1949, and lived in several California cities, raising their two children, Lyn and Michael. Nancy and Dick divorced in 1961, and moved into a successful career with Scripps Institute and UCSD, in La Jolla, California. In the early 1970s, she retired and married her second husband, Paul Deacon, a retired high school teacher. She and Paul moved to Durango, Colorado in 1974 where they designed and built two homes, and enjoyed an active life for nearly 30 years. She is preceded in death by Paul Deacon, and her brother, Richard Burnham.

In Durango, Nancy focused on her art/crafts career by exhibiting her baskets, and paper collage work in local galleries, while also enjoying fishing, and competitive golf and tennis. She made long-lasting friendships there, and remained in contact through the rest of her life. When Paul passed away in 2001, and she developed emphysema a few years later, her doctors recommended she move to a lower altitude. Nancy moved to Sebastopol, California in 2003 where she engaged in her art, ceramics and volunteer activities well into her mid- 80s.

Nancy is survived by her two children, Lyn and Michael, her granddaughter, Gayle Hogan Dyne, and great-granddaughter, Layla Jay Dyne. There will be a gathering of her friends at 2pm on Sunday, November 18th at the home of Pat Rustad, 465 East Sixth Avenue, Durango.