Nancy J. Furey of Boise, formerly of Challis and Stanley, passed away from the effects of a stroke at the age of 100 at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise on Friday, March 24, with family members in attendance.
Nancy and her twin brother were born August 7, 1922, the youngest of four children born to Harry and Hattie Stafford of tiny Gifford, Idaho. She was an apt and avid student from the beginning and having skipped a grade level in the Moscow school system, graduated from Moscow High School at the top of her class. She then enrolled at the University of Idaho where she joined the Delta Gamma sorority and majored in journalism. The head of its department would later ask Nancy to stay on as his assistant after graduation. Nancy invariably made the Dean’s List for academics; in fact her entire academic career yielded just a single “C” grade; the rest were all A’s and B’s.
While at U of I Nancy met and was courted by Jack Furey, whom she married February 28, 1942, while Jack was in law school. (“Not just the prettiest, but the smartest woman on campus,” Jack would often tell their children.) The ensuing Furey family almost wasn’t to be, however, because while they were still dating, Jack and Nancy attended a concert performed by a “name” touring swing band. Jack, who supported his college expense playing drums in various dance bands of his own, was invited to sit in with the national outfit and to hang out with them afterward until the wee hours. In a terrible (and uncharacteristic) lapse of judgment, Jack had a fraternity brother escort Nancy home so he could do so. Fortunately for the next three generations, Nancy rejected the strong advice of her sorority sisters to “dump him now!” and stuck with him anyway.
On Jack’s graduation from law school in 1948 the couple relocated to the mouth of the Pahsimeroi Valley just north of Challis where they purchased a cattle ranch and Jack ran successfully for the office of County Attorney for Custer County. Avid bridge players, Nancy and Jack soon joined a bridge club comprised mostly of U.S. Forest Service couples with whom they remained close and held annual reunions for many succeeding decades. Nancy and one of them, Helen Dienema, both accomplished horsemen, once made a horse trip from the Pahsimeroi Valley over the dividing mountains into the Lemhi Valley by themselves. Nancy was also a devoted member of the Challis chapter of Eastern Star and over the years held nearly every one of its offices, including the office of Worthy Matron and the state chapter-appointed office of Grand Representative to Scotland in Idaho. She also belonged to the Auxiliary American Legion and was a member of the Episcopal Church.
The couple had two children, whom Nancy stayed home to raise with great love and attention, devoting particular emphasis to a love of reading and learning. She also oversaw the kids’ piano practice, with an unrelenting (and invaluable) insistence to “count out loud.” When she learned of some local school board policies with which she strongly disagreed but was unable to get changed, she took on one of the board’s nastiest members in a bitterly contested election and beat him. She then worked tirelessly and successfully as a board member to right the course of the district for the benefit of her own children and the other students of that era.
It was Nancy to whom Jack was referring whenever he would observe, frequently, that “one tough woman is worth any two tough men.” He once got his own lesson in that when, having bought an abandoned log school house to convert into a barn, Nancy intercepted it and decreed the family needed a better house more than it needed a barn. A domestic contest ensued and the structure, sure enough, became an addition to the family’s little house — the foundation for which Jack dug by hand with a shovel after the workdays in his law office.
Fortunately for the family, however, Nancy didn’t win every domestic policy contest. When Jack learned of an opportunity to purchase (with partners Sherm Furey and Louis Racine) a stunning ranch situated literally at the foot of the Sawtooths in the Stanley Basin, Nancy was adamantly against the assumption of such debt. She eventually gave in, however, and while signing the note at closing, prescribed to Jack through her clenched teeth that “You ought to have your head examined.” Jack delighted in reminding her of that down through the decades, though, as she quickly came to love the place just as much as he did. He supposed it could as aptly have been named “Mad Woman Ranch” as Goat Falls Ranch.
Although Nancy and Jack both hated to leave their Pahsimeroi home of fully 65 years, their advancing ages led them to move to Boise in 2013, where they bought a house across the street from their son and daughter-in-law. They adapted well, though, and lived happily there with the assistance of live-in caregivers until Jack’s passing in July 2016 and Nancy’s on March 24, 2023. At all times Nancy kept her room-dazzling smile, her sense of humor (she especially loved the Far Side comic) and her interest in the things around her. She read her newspaper every day. She sincerely appreciated even the smallest kindness, invariably responding to a caregiver’s help with “Thank you, Precious.” If you got her a Kleenex, you’d have thought it was the Taj Mahal. The family’s heartfelt thanks go out to the wonderful caregivers who helped keep Nancy’s last years happy, healthy and safe.
Nancy June Stafford Furey was an amazing and wonderful person on every level and she will be deeply and forever missed by all who knew her. She was preceded in death by her parents and siblings and is succeeded by her daughter Kit, son Pat, daughter-in-law Tammy and her grandchildren and great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on June 8 at 2:00 in the Sawtooth Meditation Chapel in Stanley, followed by burial in the Stanley Cemetery next to her beloved Jack.