Director led activities for committee on aging

3/18/2007

BOWLING GREEN - Grace Elizabeth Nash, 52, a former longtime activities director for the Wood County Committee on Aging, died of lung cancer Friday at Wood County Hospital after a three-month bout with the disease.

Miss Nash was the activities director for the county committee on aging, or WCCOA, for 22 years until retiring about three years ago.

"She was a dynamic individual. She was very spiritual. She wanted to do everything she could to make other people's lives easy," said Jacqueline Metz, the WCCOA administrative assistant who had known Miss Nash for 10 years.

"She would tackle any project full-steam ahead. And she was very loyal and dedicated to WCCOA," said Deb Downey, the committee's director of social services, who had known Miss Nash for 11 years.

Jean Smith, the retired executive director of WCCOA agreed.

"A consummate professional, she always represented the agency well.•She just was completely, completely trustworthy," she said.

Since retiring from the county committee on aging, Miss Nash was the executive coordinator for the Ohio Association of Senior Centers and a member of the church and of the pastoral staff of the New Life Pentecostals of Toledo Church, Walbridge.

"She gave a lot of energy to the church and the people she mentored," said the Rev. Jonathan Perry, the lead pastor at the church.

"She was passionate, she was a dreamer, she had lots of energy, and she was very spiritual. The people who knew her well called her Amazing Grace," he said.

A native of Jamaica, Miss Nash moved to the United States just before her high school years and settled with her uncle in the Dayton area, where she later graduated from high school.

In 1978, Miss Nash graduated from the University of Findlay with a bachelor's degree in social sciences.

She later was the activities director for what was then the Manley Manor Nursing Home in Findlay until she was hired at WCCOA.

Surviving are her sisters, Catherine Torrey and Sheila Umbs, and brother, Jonathan Nash.

Visitation is scheduled from 2 to 9 p.m. tomorrow and from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday at the New Life Pentecostals of Toledo Church, Walbridge.

Funeral services will take place at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the church. Arrangements are by Dunn Funeral Home, Bowling Green.

The family suggests tributes to the church or the Wood County Committee on Aging.