COLBERT, Nancy Samuels - 1931 - 2022 Born in New York City, the only child of two fashion executives, Nancy's early life was glamorous and social: Park Avenue, boarding schools, and horses.
In 1952, she met Stanley Colbert, a brash literary agent whose childhood was the opposite of hers: cold-water flats in Queens and a large, close family.
They were married soon after, and had three children, Jan, Melanie, and David.
Their marriage, which would last until Stanley's death 57 years later, was happy, passionate, bookish, and loud.
Nancy moved to Canada in 1977 and was delighted to become a Canadian.
She lived in Toronto for most of the rest of her life. She founded one of the first literary agencies in Canada, then was the founding publisher of HarperCollins Canada.
Until her death she continued to be excited by discovering new authors, to collect art that amused her, to be simultaneously hopeful for the world and despairing, to surround herself with a jungle of houseplants, to play the stock market expertly, and to make new friends.
She will be remembered by them as intelligent, generous, clever, irreverent, and elegant.
She passed away peacefully, at Jan's home in Memphis, where grandchildren and great-grandchildren visited often.
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