Nancy Nelson had a distinguished career as a Colorado physician, first as a pediatrician in Denver and then as the Dean of Student Affairs of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, retiring at age 69. She never married although she was engaged once. Nancy received many impressive honors including the Florence Sabin Medical Award. As a world traveler, she visited the Soviet Union in 1968, took her two young nephews to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, and traveled extensively in areas of South America, Europe, Asia, and South America off the beaten path. Nancy was an exceptional musician and was the concert mistress (first chair violinist ) of orchestras. While she was among the best of the best. she was modest and had a splendid sense of humor with a positive personality. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, AOA medical school honorary, valedictorian of her high school class at Longmont, Colorado, PEO, and Delta Delta Delta sorority. Nancy was an excellent public speaker and represented Longmont and her high school in state and national speech meets.

Dr. Nelson grew up in a rural Colorado town of 7,000 in a closely knit family where the family home also served as a medical office for her father. She and her two younger brothers, Jim and Bill were directly exposed to all aspects of medicine during their childhood and adolescence, attended some national medical conferences, made house calls with their father, supplied an extra set of hands when needed for holding squirming children, as casting fractures, or participating in home deliveries, and participated in lively meal time family discussions of the exciting and challenging field of medicine. Many of the patients were farmers and their families along with migratory workers from Mexico who worked with sugar beets and and the other crops. Her father removed the tonsils of both Nancy and Jimmy when they were eight and six years old in his office using local anaesthesia and a few whiffs of ether. X-rays were taken and developed in the basement of the home/office at 750 Fourth Avenue. Basic laboratory tests such as CBCs, urinalysis, and Gram strains were done in the office. A diathermy machine was located in the front waiting room. Patient privacy and excellent cleanliness using strict sterilization of instruments and supplies were always maintained. All three children graduated from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver (classes of 1959, 1963, and 1966) after first competing their undergraduate years at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Her mother who had been a classroom teacher for 10 years in Ohio and then Denver, was a much needed and appreciated member of the Longmont School Board. The family attended many educational and musical events on the CU campus in Boulder. The family emphasis was on the joy of helping others through the practice of medicine, lifelong education, music, active participation in Methodist Church activities, and not on making money or displaying material goods. Longmont with a population of 7,000 (now over 100,000 in 2019) was a great rural place to grow up with fine public schools and a population who shared similar dreams, standard of living, and goals.

Nancy had very good health until she had gradually appearing memory loss during her last 14 years of life. She was the first female President of the Denver Medical Society, and was nationally known for promotion of medical education through her work with accreditation and improvement of medical schools and medical education. Nancy was the first line of help for over 1,000 medical students and was directly in charge of their graduation ceremonies. She helped with the start of the new wave of pediatric nurse clinicians and school nurse practitioners. Nancy was an avid reader who learned to read using the sight method. Dr. Nelson remains the main sponsor of the well-funded and permanent Nelson foundation.which honors less affluent graduating medical students who go into primary care. She enjoyed her life to the end, was never a complainer, and was much more concerned about others than herself. Nancy was an inspiration to her two younger brothers who also became physicians. Her father kept a good stock of drugs in the back room of the home to provide his patients along with their needed medical supplies in the storeroom of the basement.

She was one of eight women in her graduating medical school of 87, took a pediatric externship at Guy's Hospital in London, England, and was the first women senior(third year) pediatric resident at Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland directly under the famous Dr. Benjamin Spock.∼Nancy Nelson, MD was a prominent American physician and pediatrician who was married to medicine. She was a modest person but ranked high in all of her interests: Nancy was valedictorian in her 1951 class at Longmont High School, graduated magna cum laude from University of Colorado in 1955, was a Phi Beta Kappa and a sister in both her TriDelta sorority and PEO, contributed as a most generous philanthropist, belonged to the medical honor society of AOA at the University of Colorado School of Medicine where she graduated in 1959, and was a lifetime member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. She toured as a world traveler and hiker in China, USSR, Germany, Italy, Japan, Panama, Nepal, Mexico, India, Peru, England, Trinidad, and Africa where she led her teenaged nephews up 19,000 ft. Mt. Kilimanjaro. Nancy excelled as concert master on the violin in several orchestras, as a professor in both the schools of medicine and nursing at the CU Medical School where she was the Dean of Student Affairs, and as a vital member of the American College of Medical Schools where she assured quality of medical schools throughout the country.