Nancy Ann Neill Kefauver

On September 3, 2024, Nancy Ann Neill Kefauver, 91, of Keedysville, MD, passed away unexpectedly but peacefully of natural causes at their family farm. Nancy was born on October 31, 1932, in Pittsburgh, PA to Ann Elizabeth and William Thomas Neill. As a girl their family (including her younger sister Caroline) moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. She worked as a hospital volunteer in high school. She went on to graduate with a degree in Mathematics from Women’s College of Greensboro, North Carolina. Her first professional job was as an aerospace designer at Glen L. Martin Corp in Baltimore. She was amongst the first generation of women as professionals, quite an achievement. She was the third generation of women in her family to have completed college. Her quest for knowledge took her to evening classes at Johns Hopkins University to improve her engineering skills. In the process, she met a shy man, who eventually became her husband, Millard D. Kefauver, Jr. Millard was finishing his mechanical engineering degree. They married in a small ceremony at her parents’ home and moved to Milwaukee, WI to begin their life together. Millard worked there as a tractor designer. After two years, they moved to his parents’ farm near Keedysville on the Antietam National Battlefield. Although Nancy would often joke that she thought she had married an engineer, not a dairy farmer, this move began her 60-year love affair with farming.

She had four children over the years. Unfortunately, Nancy was no stranger to loss, her husband, Millard Jr., adult son, Millard III, young daughter, Amy, infant daughter, Anne Marie, and adult sister, Caroline, and brother-in-law, Les, predeceased her. William Neill Kefauver is her only surviving child. 

Millard, III married Heidi Enz, of Virginia, and they raised two daughters, Jennifer, and Catherine. Jennifer lives in Spain with husband, Javier and infant son, Diego (Nancy’s first great-grandchild). Catherine and her partner, Dave, reside in Baltimore. William Neill and his spouse, Laura, live in Colorado. Nancy’s niece, Reisa, lives near Boston, MA, and niece, Sheri, lives near Truckee, CA.

For a long time, Nancy regularly helped milk a herd of Holstein cows, fed hungry farm cats, and took on additional responsibilities running the farm, especially after her husband’s passing. She worked closely with John Canfield, the tenant farmer, and his family. She was very thankful for John’s hard work, loyalty, and kindness over the years. 

Throughout her life, she continued to pursue knowledge including medicine, space, history and more often, through her weekly conversations, with Neill. When not farming, she was active in the Farm Bureau, the Antietam Lioness Club, and then the Sharpsburg Lions Club (dedicating a total of 45 years to the Lions organization), and the Antietam Battlefield Inholders Advisory Board. She was an active member of the Mount Vernon Reformed United Church of Christ, in Keedysville, where she served as Vice President of the Consistory. In January 2008, Nancy participated in a ten-day mission trip through the Catoctin Association of the Central Atlantic Conference and a partnership with Iglesia Bethel Reformed Church in El Progresso, Honduras. They built a three-room concrete block house with a concrete floor and steel roof to replace a tin and cardboard shack. 

In this life we are all special to each other and if lucky, like Nancy, we are patient, wise and caring to all. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Sunday, September 29, 2024 at the Mount Vernon Reformed United Church of Christ located at 64 South Main Street in Keedysville. Lunch will be served at the church following the service.

In lieu of memorial gifts and/or flowers, the family requests you please consider a donation to the ALS Association, the Safe to Sleep campaign to reduce SIDS, Mount Vernon Church of Keedysville, MD, or other charity of your choosing. Expressions of sympathy may be offered to the family at BastStaufferFuneralHome.com.