Obituary of Nancy A. Connery, Esq.

Nancy A. Connery, Esq., 77, New York City, New York, passed away peacefully on Thursday, May 9, 2024.

Family

Nancy is the beloved daughter of the late Thomas F. Connery Jr. and late Elsa (nee Benestad) Connery. She is survived by her brothers and sisters, Thomas F. III, Anthony, Lynn, Clare, and Charles, her sisters-in-law Maureen and Libby and her brother-in-law Edward.

Legacy

Nancy was 77, a post-World War II baby, and the oldest of the 6 Connery children. She grew up in the small South Jersey town of Woodbury, New Jersey where she attended elementary school and graduated from Woodbury High School in 1964. Nancy acquired a significant part of the family gene pool at birth, which is to say she was very intelligent and was reading books well beyond her age as a child. She was a prolific book reader all of her life. In high school she volunteered at the local town library — probably to get access to the new books that came out. She read everything from Nancy Drew to (much later) mysteries, historical novels, biographies, science, history, science fiction — really any subject or genre that stimulated her interest. Nancy’s insatiable appetite for books was driven by intense curiosity about the world and people. Books allowed her imagination to be transported across time and space to places she would never go. While she was shy in high school, Nancy blossomed after college and wanted to see the wider world outside of New Jersey.

Nancy graduated from Rutgers University in 1968. She embraced her mother’s Norwegian roots and her father’s Irish ancestry, which perhaps inspired her multiple trips to Europe following college and ultimately led her to Brazil for a year to teach English. She once travelled down the Amazon River alone as a single woman in the 1970’s on a small boat sleeping at night on a hammock on the deck. Following her foreign adventures, she went to California and earned a Master’s degree in Microbiology at UCLA and came back to New Jersey where she taught physics, chemistry and biology at a high school near her New Jersey hometown. She then attended Rutgers State University School of Law and graduated in 1978 with honors and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law.

After law school Nancy moved to New York City, a place whose culture and energy she fully embraced. She was admitted into the New York Bar in 1978 and started as an associate at Schoeman Updike & Kaufman where she eventually became a partner, concentrating in real estate law. She was listed as a "New York Super Lawyer" from 2008-2021 and in the Top 50 Women Lawyers in New York City. Nancy served as chair on multiple New York State Bar Association committees, was a speaker at multiple professional venues and wrote many professional articles in law journals and publications over the years.

Nancy lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan close to Central Park. She loved walking her dog and engaging with other dog owners and visiting and hiking with friends. She had a fondness for reading the Sunday New York Times and watching old movies from the 40s and 50s featuring actors like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Fred Astaire/Ginger Rodgers. She liked to visit Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island in New Jersey where her mother grew up and she and her siblings spent many memorable summers by the ocean.

When her parents died Nancy became the unofficial head of the family, not by virtue of her birth date, but because she valued the love that family offered and wanted to nourish and maintain it. She was the glue that kept the family together. It was relationships she truly valued and thrived on. She loved her family unconditionally, but her friends meant the world to her. Nancy’s definition of friends also included her life-long love of dogs. Nancy always wanted a dog growing up but her parents took a while to come around. When Nancy began her independent adult life, she started by adopting her first dog Zoe, followed by Dewey who had been abused, and in succession Mindy, Patsy, Paulette, and Elsie. Nancy doted on her dogs and they returned the affection. Her dogs were never pets to her. They were her friends and companions.

Over the past two years while Nancy was being treated for stage 4 lung cancer her siblings and sisters-in-law made visits to support her and were moved by the help and affection that was shown to her by friends and neighbors. Nancy seldom asked for help and did not want to be an imposition, typically encouraging her family to take in the city sights. She did not understand the depth of affection people felt for her.

Her brothers and sisters want to thank all of Nancy’s friends, including the people in her condo building who were like a second family, and supported her in so many generous and loving ways. The family would also like to thank her best friend Mindy who was always there for her. Nancy cared little about material things but thrived on her relationships with people and the joy they gave her. She will be deeply missed by her brothers, sisters and the greater Connery family.

Farewell Tribute

Relatives and friends are invited to attend her graveside gathering on Wednesday May, 22 at 1:00 PM at Eglington Cemetery in Clarksboro, NJ. Nancy’s family plans to receive visitors who wish to celebrate her life on June 19, 2024 in New York City. The details of that gathering will be provided shortly. Please check the McGuinness Funeral Home website for updates or call Chuck Connery at 609-605-0701.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the ASPCA - https://www.aspca.org (DONATE HERE)

share the memories … share love … ShareLife® at www.mcgfuneral.com