Nancy Hatch

Nancy Louise Rice Hatch was born on July 25, 1931, in Toledo, Ohio, to Edna Maude Elkins Rice of Missouri, and Arthur Vernon Rice of Illinois. Nancy grew up in San Antonio, except for two years of high school in Dallas where her mother had been transferred as a civil servant with the US Army during WWII. Following graduation from Jefferson High School in San Antonio, she attended the University of Texas at Austin, and shortly was married to Gerald Brandon Harding, Jr. of San Antonio. \r\n\r\nNancy and Gerald lived in Lake Jackson, Texas, for 20 years where Nancy cared for her family and later worked for the South Texas Girl Scout Council and then Dow Chemical Company in administration at the Freeport plant. Gerald passed in 1973, but Nancy considered herself very fortunate to meet and then marry in 1977 the man who was to become her best friend, Asa Elliott Hatch. \r\n\r\nNancy and Elliott spent much of the next 36 years traveling to every state in the nation and many places abroad, with Nancy's never ending delight in seeing new places and things. Following retirement in 1988, they moved to Kerrville, Texas, where Nancy, who had always been an excellent seamstress, took up quilting and produced beautiful items for family and friends. She also volunteered for the local Women's Shelter, the Hill Country Youth Ranch Auxiliary, and Threads of Love, and she filled many functions in the First United Methodist Church of Kerrville. \r\n\r\nIn 2014, Nancy and Elliott moved to Morningside Ministries at Menger Springs in Boerne, where they lived until Nancy's passing on February 5, 2017. She is survived by her husband, Elliott, her two children, Sheryl Howard (Kerrville) and Gerald Harding and his wife Jackie (Granite Shoals), her step-son, Mark Hatch and his wife Anne (Kingwood), granddaughters Kathryn Luke and her fiancé Sted Garber (Arlington, VA,), and Mackenzie Hatch (Kingwood). \r\n\r\nNancy is greatly missed by family, of course, but also by her close friends who jokingly referred to her as "Nice Nancy" for her sunny smile and matching disposition. And one can't think of Nancy without mentioning her other best friend, her little dog Muffy. She and Muffy were inseparable, as Nancy would say "If Muffy can't go, I'm not going." And Muffy certainly was her comfort during Nancy's long illness. \r\n\r\nNancy was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Gerald, her step-son, Craig Hatch, and her son-in-law Byron Howard. \r\n\r\nServices for Nancy will be at 11:00 AM, Friday, February 10, 2017 at the First United Methodist Church, where she will later be interred in the Columbarium. Memorials in lieu of flowers are requested to be sent to the Hill County Youth Ranch (www.youth-ranch.org, Donate).