Colorful Life

I have spent most of my life with two moms. I am saddened to share that my stepmom, Nancy Nierman-Baker, died recently. It doesn’t come as a complete surprise because she has spent the last year at Ohio Living Rockynol in West Akron. This is an unofficial tribute. She has had a profound impact on my life. 

Many people in the Akron community knew Nancy well. She was very accomplished, and looking back, it seems like she had multiple full lives. It was always a joke among us kids that we could be at a rest stop in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and she would run into an old friend. We moved very slowly because she stopped to talk with everyone. 

She was a hippie in the true sense. She came of age in the ’60s and drove around in a ’70s Volkswagen bus. It feels like I spent half my childhood riding around in the back seat of a VW bus. It was a fitting car for her. She was also an artist and a longtime member of the Akron Society of Artists. There was always a group of colorful artists around the house, and I saw life from a different perspective. Although I am not an artist, I have had plenty of opportunities. I used to take classes from her friend, Jack Richard, but not even he could help me draw. 

It seemed like she was in school during most of my life. Nancy received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Kent State University, which took her many years to finish. I understand now when you are raising kids, it’s very hard to get that degree completed. Once she finished that, she gravitated toward psychology. She wanted to mix in her art background, so she pursued a master’s degree in art therapy at Ursuline College and later a master’s degree in counseling from Walsh University. She was very passionate about art therapy, and it was always a joke among us kids to not let her see your drawings or she would analyze your artwork. 

With her art therapy and counseling degrees, she spent the rest of her working life at Cleveland Clinic Akron General in the partial hospitalization department as an art therapist and also taught at Ursuline College. Many of the art therapists in the area were trained by her or had her as a teacher. 

Nancy also really enjoyed writing for Akron Life and was always pitching story ideas. Most of what she wrote about was art, and the last piece she wrote was in February 2020, about the grief of losing a spouse. I always appreciate extra helping hands at the magazine, but she was such a perfectionist about her story that she had draft after draft. For a monthly magazine, it took her almost too long to finish. Before my dad died in 2018, he was encouraging her to write a book about art therapy, and as far as I know, there wasn’t a more knowledgeable person around when it came to the subject. 

Not long after my dad died, she started having memory issues, which concerned all of us. The thing about dementia is that it can be easy to fall into denial by saying, Well, she has always kind of been that way, or, Grief has been very hard on her. But the signs were becoming clearer, and last year we moved her to Rockynol. Not too long after that, she was placed in the memory care unit. 

It’s almost impossible to wrap up someone’s life in one page, and I am sure I missed tons. But what I do know is she is deeply loved by our family and friends, and she is missed by all.   

[ Publisher Colin Baker is a retired racing driver and gearhead. ]