[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17131-17132]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   IN HONOR OF NANCY MARIANNA EMMONS

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. SAM FARR

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 13, 2012

  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and celebrate the 100th 
birthday of Nancy Marianna Emmons.
   Nancy Marianna Pierson was born January 5, 1913 to Grace Monkhouse 
Pierson and Temple Guy Pierson in the small southern Indiana town of 
Spencer, near Bloomington, Indiana. Her paternal grandmother, Cassandra 
Conant Pierson, had been a schoolteacher in Kentucky before marrying 
Joseph Liston Pierson, a private in the Union Army during the Civil 
War. Her maternal grandmother was a member of the Tyson family in 
Maryland, descendants of Elisha Tyson (1750-1824), a wealthy merchant 
and early abolitionist.
   After attending the University of Indiana in the early 1930s, she 
decided to move to Chicago with her best friend to find work--a time 
she always referred to as ``her salad days.'' Nancy had a good job with 
N.W Ayre, an advertising agency, but after a time the glamour of 
California lured her West. She had some relatives in the Bay Area and 
chose to move to San Francisco. After being there a few weeks she 
wandered into an ad agency looking for a job, and was immediately 
offered a job as ``Miss Oakland'' on a float inaugurating the opening 
of the Bay Bridge in November 1936.
   It was around this time that Nancy noticed a handsome blond man who 
walked down the hill past her apartment everyday to his car. She 
``accidentally'' happened to be out on the street one morning, and of 
course charmed

[[Page 17132]]

him. He was Donn Emmons, a shy young architect, who was working for 
William Wilson Wurster, already a well-known Bay Area architecture 
firm.
   Nancy married Donn in 1942, after he joined the Navy as a 
Lieutenant. Through her husband Donn, Nancy met my parents Fred and 
Janet Farr. She was present at my birth at the Children's Hospital in 
San Francisco on July 4, 1941. The Emmons and Farr families have been 
close ever since.
   After the war years, the family settled in Mill Valley, California, 
and had three children, Zette (b. 1946), Janet (Luli, b. 1949), named 
after my mom Janet Farr, and Andrew Pierson Emmons (b. 1953). My mother 
Janet named her second daughter after her friend Nancy.
   Though the Emmons separated in 1955 and were later divorced. Nancy 
maintained a close friendship with the Farr family.
   Nancy outlived Janet, Fred and Donn and saw me, young ``Sammy'', get 
elected to Congress in 1993.
   In her professional life, Nancy became very active in the local 
artistic community of Mill Valley, California, and was a member of the 
Ann O'Hanlon's ``Sight and Insight'' gallery. She made large sculptural 
collages using found objects and natural materials, which were abundant 
in her large garden. She also maintained a large circle of friends in 
the greater Bay Area, especially in San Francisco. She has outlived all 
of her own generation of friends, and has a special place in the lives 
of the children and grandchildren of that artistic and architectural 
community that sprang up in the Bay Area after World War II.
   Mr. Speaker, I know the whole House joins me in wishing Nancy a 
happy, healthy and joyful year as she celebrates her 100th birthday!

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