Nancy Kemp Passes Away

Earl and Nancy Kemp in 1970.

Earl and Nancy Kemp in 1970.

Nancy Kemp, as she was known when she participated in her husband Earl’s Who Killed Science Fiction?, a Best Fanzine Hugo winner in 1961, passed away December 22 of uterine cancer.

Earl Kemp shared the news on several fannish e-mail lists:

My ex-wife [Nancy] died. We were divorced over 40 years ago and she’s outlived two husbands after me, but she was still the mother of my children. For over a year she had been fighting uterine cancer and it was touch and go all those months.

From the early ’50s to the early ’70s she was active in SF fandom, especially the Midwest area, attending conventions, playing hostess, making costumes, etc. It was an awful way to go, very painful, slowly shutting down but the worst is now over and she is at last at peace.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]