Phyllis M. Thanner

Phyllis Madeline Thanner, 89, Registered Nurse and Health Care Professional.  

Phyllis Madeline Thanner, a retired registered nurse and health care professional, died peacefully on May 26, 2024, at her home in Dunbarton, New Hampshire. Mrs. Thanner was born in 1934 in Oradell, New Jersey and was a 1955 graduate of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital Nursing Diploma Program in Hanover, New Hampshire, and completed her post-graduate course of study at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Hospital in 1956. After finishing her studies, Mrs. Thanner returned to Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital as an instructor in the O.R. for student nurses, graduate nurses and O.R. technicians. When her children were in grammar school, she became the school nurse in exchange for tuition, as education was extremely important to her. Her children loved having their mother nearby during the school day, except on vaccination day. Mrs. Thanner ultimately advanced to the role of Staff Development Coordinator at the Francis E. Parker Memorial Home in 1984, a position she held until her retirement in 1990.

Phyllis met the love of her life and married Josef Thanner, the literal boy next door, in 1960. After accepting a position as Operating Room Supervisor at Somerset Hospital in New Jersey, she briefly returned home to her parents’ house where she met Josef, a graduate student at Princeton University renting a suite in the house next door. Josef and Phyllis were engaged three months after they met and married just three months later. As Phyllis often remarked about their sixty-four-year marriage, “so much for long engagements.” The couple raised their three children in Middlebush, New Jersey before moving to Dunbarton, New Hampshire to enjoy a lengthy retirement.  

Phyllis was an accomplished chef who specialized in preparing French cuisine. Her dinner parties were the stuff of legend, often uproarious, and an invitation to her and Josef’s house in Middlebush was highly coveted. Phyllis was also unflappable and balanced work, raising three children, and hosting countless dinner parties with equal aplomb. If one of her children showed up unannounced with three friends for dinner, she simply put out more table settings and made her unexpected guests feel right at home. In Dunbarton, she and Josef continued their social tradition by hosting martini lunches with friends and relatives and took delight doting on their eight grandchildren.  

Phyllis was a strong believer in social justice and giving back to the community and worked tirelessly to instill that same sense of service in her children. She was a frequent volunteer for the Appalachian Service Project and was a regular volunteer at soup kitchens and housing projects in New Jersey.  

Phyllis was also a trusted counselor to her friends, many of whom sought her out for advice on life’s greatest challenges. Always generous with her time and attention, Phyllis thought nothing of watching the neighbor’s children, cooking them dinner, and running her friends’ loved ones to the hospital in between work and parenting her own children. Phyllis shared her love far and wide and relatives, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, Josef’s students stranded at school for the holidays, strangers, all benefitted from their loving encounters with her. Phyllis lived the maxim “love thy neighbor” and the world was made better, funnier, classier and more creative by having her in it.  

Phyllis - or “Nunu” and “Nomy” as her grandchildren called her – was preceded in death by her loving husband of sixty-four years Josef Thanner, and by her loving brother Richard Reinemann. Phyllis is survived by her children Megan Guerra and her husband David, Koren Thanner-Rasmussen and her husband Tim, Christopher Thanner and his wife Shari, and her grandchildren Abigail, Sophia and Nicolas Guerra, Mackay and Case Rasmussen, and Brenna, Annie and Christopher Thanner.  

A memorial service will be held at Dunbarton Congregational Church, 6 Stark Highway North in Dunbarton at 11:00 a.m. on July 13, 2024, followed by a celebration of life. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating in Phyllis’s honor to Granite VNA at granitevna.org. The Cremation Society of NH is assisting with arrangements. To view an online memorial, leave a message of condolence, or for more information please visit https://csnh.com/.