When children take a seat outside Oakdale Elementary School, someone very special will be watching over them.
One year ago this February, Nancy Armitage died at the age of 70, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Armitage’s mother also died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 67.
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A Buddy Bench memorializing Nancy Armitage was installed at her grandchildren’s elementary school in Omaha. |
As a former surgical ICU nurse, Armitage provided support to her husband’s patients. But her most important role was being a mother and grandmother to their four children and 11 grandchildren.
After her death, a Buddy Bench was installed at her grandchildren’s elementary school in Omaha. Armitage was a huge supporter of the Westside School District and a big believer in empowering young women. Dr. Armitage included a eulogy about his wife, reading in part:
“I believe Nancy would want to say something today to her grandchildren, so I will try to say it for her. Matthew, Josh, Clark, James, Grant, Charlie, Max, Lila, Annika, Alexis, Abagail — your grandmother, who loves you more than you can imagine, grew up in a world where girls in Nebraska weren’t allowed to compete in sports in school, where women were largely excluded from some professions, where people who were gay could be forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital, where black people in parts of America couldn’t vote and could be lynched without anything happening to the people who did it, where she could see the air she breathed the first time she visited L.A. and it burned her eyes, where a car going 20 miles on a gallon of gas was rare, where mountain lions were long gone from Nebraska, and black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct.
“All of these things have changed for the better — but not by accident and not without effort. The world you see around you today is not there because that’s what God wants and it can’t be changed or shouldn’t be changed. We have the ability to improve our wonderful country and make it fairer for everyone, and to protect our natural resources. However it won’t just happen and you can’t wait for someone else to do it all — you need to do your part. Don’t forget your grandmother — she’ll be watching over you.”
Friends and family also created the Nancy Armitage Pancreas Cancer Clinical Research Professorship at UNMC. The money will be used to attract and retain a top expert in pancreatic cancer clinical research.