Nancy Carlson Merritt, widow of Covenant pastor John T. Carlson, died in Carol Stream, Illinois, on February 28. She was 95.
Nancy was born January 7, 1927, in Portsmouth, Virginia. As a child she memorized hymns from the Methodist hymnal with an appreciation of the hymnwriters’ faith and gospel truths.
She graduated from high school in Washington D.C. and attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in piano and organ. While at Bob Jones she met and married her first husband, John T. Carlson, on July 1, 1950. Nancy provided a supporting ministry to John as organist and choir director, and together they served in ministry at the Bethesda Covenant Church, New York, New York; and Covenant churches in East Greenwich and West Warwick, Rhode Island; and Calvary Covenant in Chicago, Illinois.
John died on June 10, 1975. Subsequently, Nancy served as organist and choir director at the Beverly Covenant Church in Chicago and at the same time began graduate work in counseling with additional studies and credentials from the Evangelical Covenant Church in clinical pastoral education. While continuing to use her musical gifts, she served on the chaplaincy staff at Swedish Covenant Hospital and Christ Hospital in Chicago. During those years she also engaged in numerous speaking and ministry opportunities with Christian women’s clubs throughout the Midwest.
In 1980, she married Harold Merritt, a retired New England schoolteacher. She relocated to Rhode Island and returned to the Covenant East Coast Conference. She continued doing chaplaincy at Connecticut Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut, and served as organist and choir director at Presbyterian churches in Rhode Island and later at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Woodstock, Connecticut. After Harold died in 1995, she served as organist and choir director at the Greenwood Presbyterian Church in Warwick, Rhode island, until her retirement in 2007. In 2011, she moved to Windsor Park Covenant Living in Carol Stream, where she took great pleasure in playing the piano and hymns at every opportunity.
She is survived by her sons, John (Barbara) and William (Mary Jane), five grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
She was preceded in death by her husbands, John T. Carlson and Harold Merritt.
Peace be to her memory.
