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Nancy Goodspeed Roche ’53

February 11, 2019, in Portland, Oregon.

Nancy started at Reed in 1947 as an English major. After two years she transferred to the University of Washington where she completed her bachelor’s degree. She returned to Reed to get her MALS in 1969. In addition to “really special people,” she remembered the sense of freedom and intellectual awakening that the college engendered.

For 27 years, she taught English at Portland high schools, including Portland’s Girls Polytechnic, Wilson, and Cleveland. She was an active union member and a lobbyist for women’s rights. As president of both the Oregon Women’s Political Caucus and the Women’s Rights Coalition, she represented issues including bills regarding stalking, domestic violence, and child custody. “We have two major goals,” she said as president of the Oregon Women’s Political Caucus in 1982, “to elect women to office and to support women’s issues. Our bottom-line issues are concerned with human and civil rights, freedom of choice in abortion, availability of quality child care, and affirmative action.”

She is survived by her daughter, Maura Roche.

Appeared in Reed magazine: June 2019