Sally Nunneley

The following obituary was provided by Dency's son, Peter Robert Treat Kahn:

    Dency Reeve Baldwin Kahn, 81, of Olivette, Missouri, beloved mother, grandmother, and friend, passed away on February 11, 2023.  
Denny was born on October 30, 1941, in East Orange, New Jersey, and raised in Summit, NJ.  She was the third and youngest child of Edwin A. Baldwin, Sr., U.S. Army and Internal Revenue Service, and Louise T. Baldwin, homemaker.  Dency earned a B.S. degree in Zoology from Mount Holyoke College in 1963, as well as Master’s degrees from the University of Iowa in Zoology and Library Science.  She inherited her interests in history and genealogy from her father, and her love of reading and playing cards from her mother, but she acquired a lifelong passion for birding as an undergraduate student.
    Professionally, Dency was proudest of having served as the Science/Engineering reference librarian at Olin Library, Washington University in St. Louis, from 1988 until 1999.  In that capacity, she helped oversee the adoption of email by the faculty and students of the thirteen departments and programs she served, as well as her library unit’s transition from primarily print journal subscriptions to electronic databases.
    Dency held memberships in such organizations as the Daughters of the American Revolution (most recently in the John Sappington and Fort San Carlos Chapters), the Webster Groves Nature Society, the Audubon Society, and the American Library Association.  She was an avid and canny bridge player, won ribbons for her beautifully rendered counted cross-stitch pieces, volunteered as a docent for several years at the St. Louis Zoo, and enthusiastically traveled the country with family and friends, sampling varied cuisines and collecting ink stamps from as many National Park sites as she could visit.  Her infectious sense of humor and zeal for storytelling was best exemplified by her “dead cat story,” the stuff of family legend.
    She is survived by her three children: Justin Giles Griffith Kahn, Jr., 52, of Warrenville, IL; Tempe Reeve Kahn Vierck, 49, of Ballwin, MO; and Peter Robert Treat Kahn, 45, of Kirkwood, MO, as well as by her four grandchildren: Rebecca Reeve Vierck, 20; Magnus Oliver Vierck, 17; Douglas Alexander Vierck, 17; and Lucia Hope Kahn, 10.  Dency is also survived by her son-in-law of 30 years, Benjamin Wood Vierck, 49, of Ballwin, MO, and her daughter-in-law of 16 years, Diane Lynn Hope, 52, of Warrenville, IL.
    Memorial services in New Jersey will be held on July 22.  At that time, her cremains will be interred in her family’s burial plot at Elmwood Cemetery in New Brunswick, NJ.

Sally Nunneley

Dency's son sent these two photos. In the first she is shown handling a chinchilla at the St. Louis Zoo, where she was a trained zoo docent, "putting her Zoology degrees to good use." In the second she is wearing a shawl, a gift from her daughter who had knitted it herself.

Edith Dulles

Dear Sally,

WOW! I am so pleased to see what you learned about Dency!!!!! You have made it possible to feel the person and the beloved family I had known only briefly in San Antonio when you in Texas, too. She and I went to lunch a couple of times, but I was only aware that she had children at school while we were eating, and that she had one of the first Mazdas in the U.S.A. She loved the mechanics of the rotary engine. I drove her home to the barracks of the military facility her then-husband was a part of.

I do remember, later, that she wished we posted more books about science when I was recuperating from cancer. I was reading books posted on this lovely website you were a part of establishing. I didn't, but wished I had known books about science to post.

Thank you so much,

Edie

Sally Nunneley

Edie --

Thanks, but the credit goes to Susan Bale Stager, who is in touch with Dency's family.

-- Sally