Nancy Irene (Updegrove) Price

Shamokin - Nancy Price, 86, passed away Thursday, January 9, 2020, at Serenity Gardens, Kulpmont.

She was born in Shamokin on December 3, 1933, the eldest child of Adaline (Yost) and Harry Updegrove.

On September 21, 1952 she married Edward “Eddie” Price. Together they shared 46 years of marriage, and he preceded her in death in 1998.

Nancy maintained a lifelong connection to her hometown of Shamokin. She was a 1951 graduate of Shamokin High School and was active in its alumni association, organizing events for her class in her later years.

She worked for several local businesses throughout her career, including the S&H Green Stamp Store, a local mill, banks in Shamokin and Elysburg, and Knoebels Grove.

Nancy was a stalwart member of the local musical community. She was a dedicated and lifelong student of voice, piano, and organ, and performed regularly as a member of several community performance groups and the full array of choirs at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Shamokin. She served as the church’s director of the youth choir and later the Senior Choir. Her musical service to the St. John’s congregation included playing the church’s historic pipe organ and reviving and expanding the St. John’s bell choirs, which performed locally and traveled up and down the East Coast to bell choir festivals and workshops.

Family and community were deeply important to both Nancy and Eddie. With the help of the grandmother in whose home on South Market Street her parents raised her, Nancy and her husband Eddie built a home in Elysburg. The small brick rambler on W Valley Avenue became a meeting place for family and the many civic groups in which Nancy and Eddie participated. They hosted family gatherings, including summer picnics, Christmas dinners, and Easter lunches as their extended family grew, welcoming several local people over the years who were without family and who became regulars during the holidays.

The couple shared a deep love of animals and opened their home to an array of them, including a rabbit named Snoopy that they gifted to their niece and boarded for nearly a decade in a hand-built hutch and enclosed yard. They welcomed wildlife from the adjoining woods to their property, feeding and watering deer, squirrels, chipmunks, and a variety of birds, taking particular care of their charges in snowstorms and floods.

Nancy is deeply missed by her surviving sister Sara Jane and brother-in-law Ronald J Lentz of Davidson, NC; her brother Ralph; sister-in-law Judy (Lubnow) Updegrove of Midlothian, VA, as well as their families; three nephews; a niece; four great nieces; and two great-nephews. In addition to her husband, Nancy was preceded in death by her parents.

FUNERAL NOTICE

Nancy Irene Price, 86, of Serenity Gardens - Funeral services will be held on Thursday, January 16th at 11:30 with Reverend Kathleen M. Kinney, officiating, at the Farrow - C.J. Lucas Funeral Home, 240 W Chestnut Street, Shamokin, Lori Ann Campbell, Supervisor. Viewing will be held from 10:30 am until the time of service. Burial will be private, at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, please send memorial contributions to either St. John’s United Church of Christ, 117 N Eighth Street, Shamokin, PA 17872 or Serenity Gardens, 135 Vermont Dr, Kulpmont, PA 17834. To send condolences to the family please visit www.farrowfh.com

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