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Nancy Marie Franklin was born June 22, 1942. She died of a heart attack June 21, 2007, one day shy of her 65th birthday. Her ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Orange County in California where she had resided the past 45 years.
Nancy and I grew up together from babies to adulthood. Physically, the only thing that separated us was Dairyland. Remember Dairyland? Sure you do - it was the "Arnold's" in Greenville - where everyone would hang out. Nancy and I went through some of the best times of our life and some of the worst times of our life - for both of us. I will always remember her fondly as one of the best friends I ever had in this world. Sadly, we lost touch in the early/mid 90's. I will always regret that.
Nancy and I had a lot of fun times in her 1950 model, 4 door, black Ford, or was it a 1949? Whatever. I remember when she first got it and we were dragging Lee Street for everyone to see us, we decided we would make people think she had an AIR CONDITIONED CAR! We rolled the windows up on that hot summer day as we drug Lee. I remember that we had made the circle around the courthouse and going back up Lee, and had just passed Perkins Bros. when the sweat started to run down our faces. We passed the Texan and saw some people looking at us. We both tried to look really cool - in both senses of the word! By the time we got back to her house, we were both wringing wet! And the worst part of that.....I don't think we fooled anybody! Another fond memory I can share with you is when we were in High School. We were going to school one morning. We were at a stop sign, waiting for the car in front of us to go. Nancy's mind was kinda not paying attention as she eased up on the clutch...maybe just a little too much and we sort of "tapped" the bumper of the car in front of us. All of a sudden this woman comes barreling out of her car in front of us, and as we looked at her stomping back to us Nancy exclaimed, "Oh Lordie!" (One of her favorite expressions.) Guess who it was? Miss Patton. Miss Elenita Patton!!!!! Nancy just started sinking down in the seat as she approached us and proceeded to ball Nancy out about her "reckless driving" and "what a threat to society she was behind the wheel of a car." Nancy apologized for living, which didn't seem to phase Miss Patton, but she finally stomped back to her car and drove off. We looked at each other and both of us just burst out laughing. She had looked so funny as her face got redder and redder as she pointed and shook that finger as she ranted and raved at Nancy. But, we both thanked God neither one of us had her as a teacher!!
We used to talk about when we retired, I would move out there to California where she lived. We would live together and have rocking chairs on our front porch and watch kids walk by. When the kids started smarting off to us about whatever, we decided we would then take out our guns and fire over their heads!! That would stop them, huh!! (And this was before the Clint Eastwood movie where his mother did that very thing to people that drove by her house and insulted her.) I can't help but think that since Nancy lived in Los Angeles, she must have told someone about our future plans and that "thought" wound up in somebody else's mind that had something to do with that movie and STOLE our idea! It was just too much the same thing we talked about all the time.
Yeah, we had some good times together. I will miss her.
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Doris Green (Stephens)
An awesome tribute. Thank you so much, Carey.Robie Andrews
I remember Nancy so well. She left Greenville with Dicky Bowen, Victor's cousin? For Calif. Dicky was a friend of mine. I remember doing Trigonomety homework with him in Jake Bowen's (Victor's dad) tv repair shop after school.Dicky and I almost burned Nancy's house down, the one next to Dairy Land. He had some phosphorus sticks, maybe taken fron the GHS chemistry lab. We were writing on the walls with it to see our graffeti glow in the dark. But my stick caught on fire in my hand. Dicky put out the fire on the floor in Nancy's house with water. I ended up in the emergency room with third degree burns on my hand and face, and failed my GHS typing course because of the bandages on my hand. High shool idiots learn the hard way.
Robie
Beth Asberry (Dittrich)
Thanks for that beautiful tribute Carie. I think Nancy must have been one of the first to have her own car. I remember going to Nancy's house to watch Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan. I think he must have been on several Sunday nights in a row. I still have my Elvis Presley records. Remember Nancy's Dad's record shop. Beth Asberry Dittrich