Nancy Dodge Hartford

Nancy Dodge Hartford, 89, a devoted wife and mother, and a respected art history lecturer, died peacefully in her sleep in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 13, 2019. Nancy was born February 16, 1929 in Concord, New Hampshire, to Mildred Dodge, a homemaker and teacher, and Charles Dodge, a physics teacher at Concord High School.

She was raised in Concord and received her B.A. in the History of Art from Wheaton College in 1951. Two weeks after graduation, she married Warner B. Hartford, also of Concord. The newlyweds began their lives together in Boston's Back Bay, where she joined the staff of the Education Department of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In 1955, they moved to Needham, Massachusetts, where they raised their two boys, Charlie and Jim. Told early on that she could have a career or a family, she chose both. Her superior organizational skills enabled her to focus first on her family while maintaining a career. She was an accomplished seamstress, knitter, and cook, and she managed her household with a loving combination of nurturing and structure. She had a fully realized career, touring everything in Europe she had studied in college, and yet, from her sons' perspective, she was always around and available.

Nancy used lectures, tours, and technology to demonstrate that art history matters because it provides a window into how people lived. She strongly believed that developing an understanding of the people in a given period through examination of their portraits, their architecture, and their artifacts brings them to life. In a 1975 interview, she explained, "Art isn't a luxury. It improves the quality of life, and our ancestors were very aware of that. In the past, a craftsman did it when he provided a beautiful, simple chair. Everything we do in our lives affects the quality of life. That's what I try to show in my lectures."

For thirty years, Nancy was an adjunct lecturer at the MFA, where she specialized in the study of American architecture, furniture and the decorative arts. To broaden the scope of this special interest, she planned and led numerous Museum study tours for Museum members both at home and abroad. She lectured to groups throughout New England, was a former trustee of the Concord Antiquarian Museum, and served six terms as chairman of the Needham Historical Commission. She authored articles for Journey Through New England and the magazine Antiques. In the early 1950s, Nancy co-produced a series of half-hour programs, Images, for Boston public television that used the MFAs' exhibits on architecture, decorative arts, and paintings to illustrate the growth of America. In 2017, she donated her papers, notes, and slides to her alma mater, Wheaton College, where they are being archived and digitized for the education and scholarship of future generations on the Wheaton College digital repository.

In 1975, Nancy and Warner, a C.P.A., combined their talents and their shared love of history, travel, food, and fellowship to found Boston Fine Arts Travel, Ltd., whose motto "Vide optima, ignora cetera" translates to "See the best, forget the rest." Nancy planned and led specialized art history tours to the British Isles, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, and Holland, and the Eastern Bloc for museums and cultural institutions. These tours were truly a labor of love, and Nancy and Warner greatly enjoyed sharing the fruits of their research, including where to stay and dine, with their clientele, many of whom became close friends. In 1991, Warner suffered a fatal heart attack while he and Nancy were leading a tour of Scotland. Nancy continued to lead tours for Boston Fine Arts Travel until 1993.

Nancy and Warner moved to Bow, New Hampshire in 1989, where she dedicated her talents to several local organizations and to being a grandmother. She served in leadership roles for a variety of organizations, including Concord Garden Club, The First Congregational Church of Hopkinton, and the Pierce Brigade, which she joined as a docent in 2000. Nancy served four terms as president of the Pierce Brigade, which saved President Franklin Pierce's Concord home from demolition in 1966.

Remembered most fondly are annual vacations at an old cottage on Conway Lake in New Hampshire, where every July, the family would swim, fish, canoe, hike, play games and puzzles, and just enjoy each other. In her later years, she loved spending time with her five grandchildren, whether building blocks, reading the "Amelia Bedelia" series and the original "Winnie the Pooh" stories, battling it out with "Old Maid," or treating them to "cheese points." And, as her sons can attest, she was always up for an "instant lecture" on virtually any aspect of American or European history, always illustrated with descriptions of the items that showed how people lived.

Nancy's surviving family members include her son Charles, his wife Janice, and their son Christopher, all of Stow, Massachusetts, their daughter Ellen and son-in-law Jonah, of Minneapolis; her son James, and his wife Nancy, of Manchester, New Hampshire, their son Daniel, of Boston, and their daughters Jamie and Allison, also of Manchester. She is also survived by her brother Robert Dodge and his wife Sandra, of Venice, Florida; and her life-long friend and sister-in-law Miriam Sheperd, who resides in Farmington, CT.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 30, at 11:00 a.m., at the First Congregational Church in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and will be followed by a reception.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Nancy's name to The Pierce Brigade at P.O. Box 425, Concord, NH 03302 or to The First Congregational Church of Hopkinton at 1548 Hopkinton Road, Hopkinton, NH 03229.