Nancy Chandler Wells

On June 23, 1933, Claude Williamson Chandler and Elsie Maria Jamieson Chandler welcomed a fourth child, Nancy Carolyn, into their home on Third Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Lord reunited Nancy with her husband, Raymond Joseph "Joe" Wells, her loving parents, her sister, her brothers, and countless other friends and loved ones on January 14, 2020. Having started their family in Elsie's hometown of Trinidad, Colorado, the Chandlers moved their children, Gladys, Jim and Bill, to Tulsa in 1928 so that Claude could join his father at Chandler Materials Company, where he would serve well into the 1970s. For the largest part of Nancy's childhood, the family lived at 19th and S. Delaware Place, a lovingly preserved home that looks much today as it did then. She attended Barnard Elementary, Wilson Junior High and Central High School, from which she graduated in 1951. The family was active in the First Presbyterian Church. Stories of her youth included swimming daily (except Sundays) in her grandparents' filterless pool, which required weekly draining, scrubbing and refilling. But the highlight of each year was when Elsie, by herself, loaded the kids into the car for the dusty 600-mile summer trek back to the mountain cabin bought by Nancy's Grandfather Jamieson in 1912. Almost 2,000 feet higher than Trinidad, Stonewall sits thirty miles west in the first stand of Ponderosa pines, where the Dakota Wall towers over Colorado Highway 12. As it does to this day, the Jamieson cabin provided a gathering place for family and friends in the splendor of God's creation...and just one bathroom. In the Fall of 1951, Nancy entered the University of Tulsa, where she joined the Tri Delta Fraternity, a treasured, lifelong association, which she had in common with many nieces, her daughter, daughter-in-law and granddaughters. In her freshman year, at a mixer hosted by the Sigma Chi Fraternity, Nancy would meet Joe, a 1949 Tulsa Webster graduate. Joe was a fabulous dancer with a wry sense of humor which tickled Nancy to her last day. Each quickly won the heart of the other. They married at Wheeling Avenue Christian Church on June 26, 1953. Soon after, the couple relocated to the Bay Area when Joe accepted a position in US Steel's training program. In their only stint as non-Tulsa residents, Nancy and Joe welcomed David in 1956. Skeptical of the Bay Area's suitability for young families, they returned to Tulsa in December of 1957, settling in "far" South Tulsa-then 58th and Richmond-where they were further blessed with Steven in '61, Bryan in '63 and Libby in '65. In June of '65, Nancy moved the expanded family four blocks west, to the house on New Haven, where the dutch door just off the garage would remain unlocked and open to friends and family for the next thirty years. All four Wells children attended Carnegie Elementary, Nimitz Junior High and Memorial High Schools. More significantly, the four were raised within the loving walls of Harvard Avenue Christian Church, which Nancy and Joe helped establish in 1959. The foundation of Nancy's spiritual and social life for over sixty years, HACC was never more important than when Joe suffered a massive heart attack on April 15, 1977, after a two-mile jog on the Edison High School track. The immense outpouring of love and support from their Challengers Sunday School class, their choir friends and the larger church family was a constant through Joe's death at St. Francis on April 21, 1977, and continued unabated all the way to her own last week, when she passed as the last surviving HACC founder. Nancy took great pleasure in serving the Tulsa Junior League and the Tulsa County Parks Board, the latter for thirty-eight years from 1976 through 2014. Her service for many, many years as a Doncaster clothing representative combined her love of fashion and style with the opportunity to add many significant and lasting friendships to her life. Her loving but unvarnished counsel will be missed by the many friends and family who viewed her as a surrogate or supplemental parent. Her magnificent cooking will be missed by any who ever enjoyed her perfect fried eggs or fried chicken, her baked fudge or chocolate roll and, of course, best of all, her incomparable mocha cake. Her welcoming heart will be missed by all. Nancy is survived by: her children, David and Nancy Wells of Rosenberg, TX, Steven and Sarah Wells of Portland, OR, Bryan and Sarah Wells of Oklahoma City, and Libby Wells of Tulsa; her grandchildren, Carie Wells Smith and her husband, Carter of Waco, TX, Lauren Wells Shapiro and her husband, Ben of Richmond, TX, Joe and Brooke Wells of Richmond, TX, Lindsey Wells of New York City, Audrey Wells of Salt Lake City, Wesley Wells of University of Puget Sound, Hayden Wells Deberry and her husband, Indigo of Oklahoma City, and Chandler Wells Pope and her husband, T.J. of Dallas; her great grandchildren, Larson, Elise and Weston Smith, Ava and Micah Shapiro, and Liam, Quinn, Eammon, and Falynn Wells; her sisters in law, Marjorie Chandler of Tulsa, and Nancy Wells Hawkins and her husband, Bryan of Cedar Rapids, IA; her nieces and nephews, Dyann Bennett and her husband, Charlie of Tulsa, Nancy Payne and her husband, Bob of Tulsa, Teryl Sperle and her husband, Mark of Tulsa, Jan O'Connor of Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa, Ada Dyer of Tulsa, Steve and Mary Chandler of Arvada, CO, Gary and Jane Chandler of Tulsa, Cindy Kuening and her husband, Greg of Fort Collins, CO, Darcy Caraway and her husband, Jeff Evans of Marion, IA, Lindsey Andrew and her husband, Simon of Iowa City, and Brad Hawkins of Austin, TX; her first cousins, Jamie Bolane and her husband, John of Carlsbad, CA, Sean and Ellen O'Connor of Newburyport, MA, Ann Willson of Westcliffe, CO, and Gail Jamieson West and her husband of Taipei, Taiwan; numerous great nieces and nephews of the Chandler and Wells families; and many, many cousins of varying ordinals and degrees of removal. A memorial service will be held at 1:00 P.M., Saturday, January 25, 2020, at Harvard Avenue Christian Church, 5502 S. Harvard, Tulsa, OK. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Park Friends, Inc. for the benefit of Chandler Park. Park Friends, Inc. is a not-for-profit charitable organization which benefits parks operated by Tulsa County and the City of Tulsa and partners with Tulsa Community Foundation for administration of donations. https://www.moorefuneral.com/obituaries/NancyCarolyn-Wells/#!/Obituary

Nancy Chandler Wells

June 23, 1933 - January 14, 2020