Mrs Nancy Cotton Swindell

Nancy Cotton Swindell, an artist whose love of sunsets was often reflected in her watercolors, slipped beyond the horizon on August 21 after battling with cancer. A resident of the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson, she was the beloved wife for 64 years of Robert Swindell and is also survived by four sons Bobby (Betsy), Cotton (Tracy), Terry (Maria), and Jimmy (Susie) as well as fifteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her older sister and dear friend, Carew Cotton Lee. The daughter of the late Henry Kyd Douglas Cotton, founder and president of Barton-Cotton, a Baltimore printing company, and Jane Reifsnider Cotton, a homemaker, Nancy graduated from Bryn Mawr School in 1953 and obtained a degree in English literature with a minor in art from Wheaton College in 1957. From Playing field hockey, lacrosse, and badminton at Bryn Mawr, Nancy went on to compete in tennis and golf at The Elkridge Club in Baltimore. She won the women’s golf championship at the Wawenock Golf Club and tennis championships at Christmas Cove in Walpole, Maine where she and her family spent their summers. She and Bob also took many golfing trips with family and friends in the United States, Canada, and Europe. However, according to her daughter-in-law Betsy, “There was nothing Nancy enjoyed more than a big party at home, a house party in Maine, or a Sunday night dinner with her boys and their families.” In Addition to painting, Nancy nurtured her interest in art by volunteering for thirty years as a docent at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She loved taking elementary school children on tours and teaching them about art history. In recent years, she pioneered numerous art shows at Blakehurst. Another main interest of Nancy’s was gardening. As President of the Guilford Garden Club of America, she co-chaired the annual convention of that organization when it met in Baltimore in 1992. She particularly enjoyed being a Judge and traveling across the country to judge various shows. “Nancy had a gift for gently telling people why their arrangement didn’t win a blue ribbon,” her husband said, “she was very tactful.” Nancy and her friend Liz Jones became partners in a topiary business, “Vine Arts.” “Nancy was unbelievably kind and helpful,” Liz said. “At the same time, you always knew where you stood. She was my oldest and dearest friend in Baltimore.” Later, Nancy started her own flower arranging enterprise, “The Right Touch.” In addition to regularly providing flowers for Elkridge, Blakehurst, and The Church of Redeemer where she was a communicant, she created beautiful arrangements for weddings and other festive occasions. Dr. William Fritz, a close family friend, observed, “Nancy made every occasion she attended a happier one. She was brilliant, witty, talented, loyal, and totally authentic. The number one priority in her life was her devotion to her wonderful husband and family. The loss of her has created an enormous void in the hearts of her vast number of friends, but it has also evoked enormous gratitude for having had her as a part of their lives.”

Mrs Nancy Cotton Swindell

January 14, 1936 - August 21, 2023