Nancy D. Pratt, 67

FRYEBURG — Nancy DeBard Pratt, 67, of Fryeburg, passed away at home on March 11, 2013, attended by her family, after a multiyear battle with cancer.

She was born in Boston, Mass. on Aug. 3, 1945, to D. Stuart DeBard and Katharine D. DeBard, and grew up in Hingham, Mass., where she developed her lifelong love for salt water and sailing.

She graduated from Hingham High School (Mass.) in 1963 and from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., in 1965, and afterwards held a position as a medical assistant at the Church Home Society in Boston.

In 1966 Nancy met her future husband Buzz (A. Kingman Pratt Jr.), while he was home on leave from the Navy, on a blind date arranged beforehand by their mothers. Neither Nancy nor Buzz was particularly enthusiastic about this arrangement, but neither wanted to irritate their well-meaning mother, and besides, theater tickets were involved. Nancy’s initial thought was “if the play’s any good, I should be able to handle this.” That first date went well and they were married a year later.

As a Navy bride Nancy followed Buzz around the country as he was assigned to various ships in various home ports. After the Navy Buzz started law school, and together they started a family.

They subsequently settled in Fryeburg in 1974, bought an old house and opened a law practice. Nancy worked initially as a bank teller, then as Director of the local school system lunch program. After a few years she joined her husband’s practice as office manager and bookkeeper, a position in which she continued until her illness brought on retirement in 2010.

As soon as they were able Nancy and Buzz took up traveling, logging numerous trips over the years to Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

They also took advantage of much of what northern New England offered, from trips to remote sporting camps, local canoe sojourns, and coastal windjammer cruises. Probably Nancy’s favorite mode of travel became the sailboats she and her husband owned and moored in Casco Bay, and together they made many leisurely cruises along the Maine coast.

When she wasn’t raising their two children, Doug and Becky, working, or traveling, Nancy indulged her creative interests, including photography, stained glass and counted cross stitch, many of which garnered the coveted Fryeburg Fair blue ribbon.

She is survived by her husband, A. Kingman Pratt Jr., of Fryeburg, her son and daughter-in-law, Douglas and Stephanie Pratt, of Hudson, N.H., her daughter, Rebecca Pratt, of Portland, her sister, Ellen DeBard Adle and her brother-in-law Parviz Adle, of Duxbury, Mass., her brother, Davis M. DeBard and her sister-in-law Janice DeBard, of Crestline, Calif. and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.

A memorial service in celebration of her life will be announced at a later date and held locally in the spring; arrangements by Wood Funeral Home in Fryeburg.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to the Oncology and Infusion Services of Memorial Hospital, 3073 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, NH 03860. Online condolences may be expressed to the family at www.woodfuneralhome.org