Nancy S. Eckenrode, 85

February 15, 2015

Nancy S. Eckenrode, a retired registered nurse and wife of the late Joseph Eckenrode M.D., died on Sunday, February 15, 2015.
Born in Lancaster on August 16, 1929, she was the daughter of Paul W. and Irene S. Schriver.
Educated at Sacred Heart Academy, she graduated in 1947 and matriculated at the St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing, becoming a registered nurse in 1950. That year she began her career at St. Joseph’s and in 1952 moved to the Lancaster County Home and Hospital, later Conestoga View, where she served in many of the facility’s units, including the psychiatric ward, a favorite. Nancy retired from Conestoga View in 1986.
A long-time parishioner of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Nancy took pleasure in vegetable and flower gardening and was an optimistic, if also stoic, follower of Philadelphia’s major league baseball team. Together with her late husband, she volunteered for a number of years at Evergreen Estates Retirement Community, where she resided until August 2014.
In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by a brother, Paul, and is survived by her stepchildren and their spouses, Joseph L. and Mary Kay Eckenrode, Jr., Lancaster, George K. and Candace Eckenrode, Wellsville, Penna., Mary E. Gibson of Charlottesville, Virginia and Eileen E. Vroom of Purcellville, Virginia, along with numerous step grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The family thanks Nancy’s caregivers at Evergreen Estates and Mennonite Home, Drs. Shultz and DeGreen, and the many kind nurses she encountered for their care and solicitousness.
A viewing will be held on Friday, February 20 at 10AM at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 321 W. Chestnut St., Lancaster, followed immediately by the funeral service at 11AM. Interment in Greenwood Cemetery. A lover of dogs, but emphatically not cats, Nancy requested that, instead of flowers, donations be sent to the Lancaster County SPCA, 848 S. Prince St., Lancaster, PA 17603.