Nancy Marlow Turner, a longtime resident of Pacific Palisades, passed away peacefully in her sleep in Santa Monica on January 21. She was 84. Nancy (‘Nan’) Priscilla Marlow was born July 27, 1925 in Toronto, Canada. Her father Frederick grew up in the farm country of Ontario, Canada, and became a general-practice doctor. While serving in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in World War I he met Mabel Olive Winsland. They married at her family home in Ashstead, Surrey, England, in 1919, and moved to Toronto, where they raised three daughters, Joan, Nancy and Patricia. Nancy enjoyed her early years in Toronto, and had fond memories of riding around the city with her father making medical house calls on his sick patients. In the summer, the family would visit her father’s family farm in Blackstock, Ontario, where Nancy enjoyed participating in farm activities, including collecting eggs and cutting hay. Nancy’s happiest childhood memory was when, at age 13, she and her mother went to England in 1939 just before World War II to visit family and see the homestead. In 1943, Nancy graduated from Branksome Hall School for Girls in Toronto, where she began some lifelong friendships. After high school she took a typing course and worked as a clerk in a bookstore. She also worked as a secretary at a tennis club and modeled in fashion shows. World War II brought many changes. Nancy (now known as Nan) enlisted in the Women’s Royal Navy, called ‘Wrens’ for short, as a visual signaler. After excelling in a four-month course, she was assigned to Halifax Harbor, where she used signal flags and Morse code with a large lamp to give and receive signals from Navy ships and merchant ships. Later, Nan was sent to a naval post in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Soon after the war ended, Nan entered the University of Toronto. She met her future husband, a medical student named Roderick Turner, and the two were married on September 24, 1948, at the beginning of their senior year. She received an honors B.A. in music and the arts and Rod received his medical degree. After graduation, the pair moved to Vancouver, where Rod completed an internship and Nan taught school. They house-sat there as a way to survive on Nan’s meager salary. In 1950, shortly after the birth of their first child, Nan and Rod moved to Hollywood, where Rod studied surgery and urology. In 1955, at the end of his urology residency, they moved to Pacific Palisades when Rod was invited to join the faculty of the new medical school at UCLA. Nan said that the Palisades was an ideal place to live with the beach and mountains so close and a very friendly community. She devoted the 1950s and ’60s to raising her three children: Toni (1950), Rod (1951) and Dana (1953). Being a wife and mother was as Nan thought it would be ‘ a lot of fun. She also worked in Rod’s medical office. They had a good time traveling the world together, often for medical conferences. Nan enjoyed art history and loved working as a docent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum (today’s Getty Villa). She spoke beautiful French and was a member of the French Salon of West Los Angeles. In 1961-1962 when her family moved to Paris for a year of medical work and education, Nan was the family spokeswoman. At that time the family traveled throughout Europe and the Middle East. This was a very interesting year for the whole family and made a deep impression on them all. Together, Nan and Rod were also active in the Toronto Alumni Association of Southern California, Rotary, and at churches, where they taught Sunday School at St. Matthew’s and served on the Calvary Church Missions Committee. Nan enjoyed swimming in the ocean or pool almost every day and had a tennis foursome to keep active. She also loved walking the family dog, Sondy. She was a skilled piano player and enjoyed singing. Nan was happy spending her summers in Ontario, Canada, where she and her family visited Nan’s sisters and their families before joining the Turner clan on Cache Lake in Algonquin Park. The joy of her life was her loving husband, Rod (who died in 2004); her three children, Toni Hopkins (husband Robert) of Healdsburg, California; Rod Turner (wife Michele) of Pacific Palisades; and Dana Witmer (husband Ted) of Bunia, Congo; and seven grandchildren: Whitney Hopkins, Emmett Hopkins, Kathryn Turner, Anne Turner, Paige Witmer, Luke Witmer (wife Sarah) and Greg Witmer. A celebration of Nan’s life will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, January 30, at Calvary Church in Pacific Palisades. Anyone who remembers Nan is welcome to attend.
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