Nancy (Powelson) Donham ’63

A remembrance by Carolyn Williamson Nelson

I first met Nancy at the Carleton Summer Honors Term in 1960 (a short-lived institution—ours was the second, and last). I shared a double room with Felicia Oldfather, and Nancy had the single next door. I remember a little of our very first conversation. Nancy, I discovered, had decided opinions about topics I’d never even thought about, such as the advantages of showers over baths. (I can’t remember whether the bathroom we shared had one or both, or if the former, which one.)

The Honors Term was intended to give students the opportunity to graduate in three years, and Nancy was one of the few of our group who worked toward that goal. (Most of the rest of us were content to take four years, although I had to change my plans my third year, and scramble to get enough credits to graduate in three.)

Nancy was a very serious—and unusually bright—student (she graduated magna cum laude). But she had a wonderful sense of humor, and a very expressive face. I remember how she would wrinkle her nose and lift her upper lip to bare her front teeth when she saw or heard something particularly ridiculous. She was witty, and talented, enough to write pages of heroic couplets for a group-designed paper in our eighteenth century poetry class.

She had had polio as a child, and, although she walked without a cane, her limp slowed her down physically. Nevertheless she was socially as well as academically active during her three years at Carleton. We both majored in English, and took as many classes as we could from Owen Jenkins, who had taught us during the Honors Term and inspired us by his example to work toward careers as college teachers.

We saw less of each other after the Honors Term ended and regular classes began, but in our last year we renewed our earlier friendship. I particularly remember a trip to Minneapolis with Owen and Barbara Jenkins, planned by Nancy and Shelagh Day, very close to the end of our last trimester. We had a delicious and rather liquid dinner at a great restaurant, and somehow managed to evade expulsion after we returned to the dorm for having imbibed alcohol.

Nancy received her PhD from the University of Toronto, taught at George Washington University, married, went with her anthropologist husband to Ethiopia, then moved to California and worked at Stanford. She retired to Florida to live near her sister after losing much of her eyesight, but continued to write, including a personal memoir called, very appropriately, Thinking Woman.

We had exchanged a few letters after graduation, but lost touch after a year or so. I always assumed that we’d eventually have a chance to catch up at one of the Carleton reunions, and was saddened to hear of her death in 2009.

Nancy Powelson was among a small group that entered Carleton three months early in what was called the Summer Honors Term, designed to allow graduation in three years. (The 1960 group was the second and last Summer Honors class.) She graduated magna cum laude in 1963, and took a Woodrow Wilson scholarship to the University of Toronto, where she received a PhD in English. She obtained positions teaching English literature, first at Virginia State College and later at George Washington University.

In 1971, Nancy married Donald L. Donham, an anthropologist, and accompanied him on field trips to southwestern Ethiopia in 1974 and 1983. Their son, Benjamin Powelson Donham, now a medical doctor, was born in 1977. For a period, Nancy was an academic affairs writer at the Stanford University News Service, and then worked for 18 years as a production editor at the Annual Reviews of Immunology, Ecology and Sociology in Palo Alto. She and Don Donham were later divorced.

Nancy suffered from medical problems for most of her life. She had polio as a child, and wore a leg brace. She later developed diabetes that eventually led to a near-complete loss of her eyesight. In 2002, in the wake of the vision loss, she retired and moved to Lake City, FL to live with her sister. She became active in church work, using a motorized chair to get around the community, and wrote two books: “Raising Ben,” and a personal memoir, “Thinking Woman.”

Despite her vision and mobility issues, Nancy was able to attend her son’s wedding in Atlanta in 2007. Esther Musson Johnson ‘64, her college roommate, recalls: “At Carleton, Nancy was politically conservative, in the tradition of Barry Goldwater. She enjoyed well-reasoned political dialogue, especially with others who held an opposite position to her own. Felicia Oldfather was a frequent visitor to our room to talk politics. Nancy also subscribed to The Reporter—‘in order to better know the opposition,’ she would explain.

In a remembrance for the 1963 class bio book, Carolyn Williamson Nelson ’63 recalled her time with Nancy: “Nancy was a very serious – and exceptionally bright – student. But she had a wonderful sense of humor, and a very expressive face. I remember how she would wrinkle her nose and lift her upper lip to bare her front teeth when she saw or heard something particularly ridiculous. We both majored in English, and took as many classes as we could from Owen Jenkins, who had taught us during the Honors Term and inspired us by his example to work towards careers as college teachers. I particularly remember a trip to Minneapolis with Owen and Barbara Jenkins, planned by Nancy and Shelagh Day, very close to the end of our last trimester. We had a delicious and rather liquid dinner at a great restaurant, and somehow managed to evade expulsion after we returned to the dorm….” Carolyn ended by noting that she’d lost touch with Nancy over the years. “I always assumed that we’d eventually have a chance to catch up at one of the Carleton reunions,” she wrote.

Nancy died of complications from diabetes on April 7, 2009.