In Memoriam: Nancy Reilly Schultz
July 20, 1930 - November 9, 2023
July 20, 1930 – November 9, 2023
Nancy Jane Reilly Schultz died November 9th, surrounded by her family.
The only daughter of Eunice Crowley and John F. Reilly, Nancy was raised in Garden City, Long Island, until the age of ten, when the family moved to New Orleans. There Nancy attended Sacred Heart Convent School and graduated from the McGehee School. The family often spent summers at Ponte Vedra Beach, where she met a handsome jitterbug partner, sixteen-year-old Fred (“Fritz”) Schultz. In 1951, before her twenty-first birthday, Nancy graduated from Smith College and married Fred Schultz that August. Catherine was born the following June, while Fred was finishing at Princeton. She always said that it was so much fun to audit classes with all the college boys and to be immersed in campus life. One day Nancy mentioned a disheveled old man with crazy hair who had taken an interest in her and the baby. When Nancy told Fred, he said, “You don’t know who that is? That’s Albert Einstein!”
Later in life, Nancy went back to college, majoring in fine arts. In 2000 she received a BFA from the University of North Florida, summa cum laude, Phi Kappa Phi. Although she embraced painting late in life, she found great joy in making art and had a significant degree of success, counting 15 solo exhibitions and 13 group exhibitions. Her work in acrylic and in colored pencil, chiefly featuring flowers in brilliant colors, hangs in eight corporate collections and many more private collections.
Nancy was very involved in civic work, beginning with the Junior League when she and Fred first moved back to Fred’s hometown. Since she was not a Jacksonville native, she was surprised and proud to have been chosen for membership. Through the Junior League she became the first docent at the Cummer Gallery of Art and later became head of their docent program. She was a caseworker for Volunteers of America as well as a part-time social worker. She was finance chairman for Symphony Showcase, raised donations for Channel 7, served as co-chairman of the Lead Gifts Committee for Hubbard House, served on the Steering Committee for the Metropolitan YMCA, was a volunteer for PBS, served as Duval County Women’s Chair for the March of Dimes, was a founding member of the Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital, and served on the Executive Committee of the University of North Florida, where she remained an honorary trustee.
In addition to her volunteer work, through the Schultz Foundation she supported Riverkeeper, Jacksonville University Marine Science Center, The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership, Smith College, Bolles School, Episcopal School, Paideia School (Atlanta), St. Vincent’s Hospital, Jacksonville Zoo, Princeton University, and Daniel.
In 1963 Fred was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, becoming Speaker in 1968. During these years Nancy was very busy raising young children and taking care of her disabled brother. When Fred was Vice-chair of the Federal Reserve and the children were older, she began an exciting time in her life, meeting and corresponding with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and having lively conversations with Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Shirley Temple Black, and Barack and Michelle Obama. Fred was received by heads of central banks and ministers of state worldwide. Together Fred and Nancy toured nearly all of Western Europe and East Asia including visits to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and an occasional trip to Africa and South America. In their later years, traveling with family and friends, London became their favorite destination.
After her children left the nest and Fred retired from public service, Nancy opened a tennis shop in Avondale. Looters took the name “The Smash” a little too literally and the store closed after plate glass windows were smashed to steal warm-up suits.
Although as a girl Nancy was utterly uninterested in sports (preferring instead to dance the jitterbug at every opportunity), Fred encouraged her to learn golf and tennis. For twenty years she played for the Timuquana “A” women’s tennis team, rising to number three. After she gave up tennis she and Fred began to play golf again, and she even got a hole-in-one at Timuquana. When golf became too arduous, the two of them would race-walk for miles up and down Riverside Avenue and around Memorial Park, never failing to don their signature wide-brimmed hats. Nancy kept up her walking in later years, striding along around the condo parking lot with her walker, ever the tenacious and spirited little Irish girl.
Nancy Schultz was a vivacious and involved grandmother, the central switchboard for family updates, who expected to hear from her children regularly. She felt that it was her sacred responsibility to keep up with each development in the lives of her friends and family. In fact, Nancy thought that it was basic human courtesy to be intensely curious about people’s lives. As a consequence, she got to know each workman who crossed her threshold, each server at a restaurant, and more recently, each nurse who cared for her.
Up until a few weeks before her death at 93, she often said that she still felt like a teenager, and the entire family agreed. Despite her experiences among the great and powerful, she was always unaffected and full of joie de vivre, at heart the perpetual bobby-soxer.
Nancy is survived by three of her children: Catherine Schultz McFarland (Douglas McFarland) of San Francisco, Frederick Schultz Jr. of New York, and Clifford Schultz of Jacksonville.
Her six grandchildren are Keegan Kelley of Atlanta, Caitlin Kelley (Christian Valley) of Atlanta, Bronwyn Kelley (Grant Cooper) of New York City, Dr. Mei Schultz of Washington D.C., and Reilly and Rick Schultz of Jacksonville.
Her great-grandchildren are Arabella Karemesic, Roman and Sawyer Karamseic-Kelley, and Sophia Valley.
Nancy’s husband Fred Schultz predeceased her as did her youngest son, John Reilly Schultz.
Farewell, Mom. Farewell, Gammy. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
In lieu of flowers, please send any gifts to Daniel, a wonderful children’s welfare organization in Jacksonville. www.danielkids.org
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