Ex-teacher relished `difficult' students

9/4/2003

LINCOLN, Neb. - Nancy Lee Hughes, a former Bowling Green resident who was an elementary school teacher for two northwest Ohio school districts, died of a stroke Monday in Monarch Hospice here. She was 83.

Her husband, Robert Hughes, described her as a very motherly person who especially liked teaching difficult pupils.

“She was particularly good teaching problem students [how to read]. Some of them subsequently got on the honor roll,” Mr. Hughes said.

Mrs. Hughes was born into the family of James G. Lehmann, who owned and operated the former Lehmann Meat Market in Bowling Green.

She graduated from Bowling Green High School in 1937, and went to Bowling Green State University, graduating in 1941 with a bachelor's degree in elementary education.

Upon graduating from college, Mrs. Hughes started her teaching career, which she interrupted for 19 years to raise her children. She taught fifth grade in the Fayette schools from 1941 to 1942, first grade in the Sandusky schools from 1945 to 1946, and remedial reading at Waverly Public Schools in Nebraska from 1965 until she retired in 1975.

She spent much of her spare time as a Sunday school superintendent, serving at different times at Olivet Baptist Church in Omaha and at Second Baptist Church and Fourth Presbyterian Church, both in Lincoln.

She had a large doll collection and attended five national doll collectors' convention, where her collection won several ribbons, her husband said.

Surviving are her husband, Robert; son, Robert Redfield; daughter, Suzanne Kruce, five grandchildren, and a great-grandson.

Visitation will be after 2 p.m. today at the Roper and Son Funeral Services, Lincoln. Services will be at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Lincoln.

The family suggests tributes to Fourth Presbyterian Church, Retired Teachers Scholarship Fund, or Cotner Center Condominiums, all of Lincoln.