Well, it was an amzing and richly human memorial gathering that rolled up to Mudlark's in the hills behind Atascadero in the ccentral California coast area yesterday.

Her home was so rich with her touches--her pottery, her phtographs, her instruments--that it felt as if she had just stepped out for a second. The people who loved her started trickling in and then more of them and more of them until the house was just overflowing with them. Each one spoke up to reveal that they had held Nancy foremost in their heart, as the dearest of possible friends--exactly as I had felt from our first meeting, and BBW had from hers. There were plenty of tears and sighs of bereavement, and there was plenty of Nancy-style laughter and humor as well, just as she would have had it.

Nancy's daughter had taken charge and gotten things organized and laid out with help from all over town, and had pulled off heroic labors getting the event to happen. We spent hours swapping songs that Nancy loved, and the guitar, autoharp, and banjo and mouthharp rang through the vale until evening.

Bev and Jerry put on some really beautiful numbers in their beautiful disciplined harmonies and their terrific lyrics, and in addition after the jamming drew to a reluctant close they herded us to their home about thirty miles over the mountains toward the coast and put us up for the night and fed us a fine dinner with lots of great conversation. Thank you so much, you two wonderful folkies!

It was a grand send-off, cathartic, rich, and touched by the classy spirit of Nancy Ross throughout. I send her on her way with joy and blessings.