In Memoriam: Dr. Nancy Anne Faller, 1946 – 2022

At 12:00 this afternoon, Thomas Aquinas College bid farewell to a beloved member of its New England community, Dr. Nancy Anne Faller, better known as “Nurse Nancy” by the students, faculty, and staff for whom she cared — and who loved her deeply.

In the three years since the College opened its Massachusetts campus, Dr. Faller served as its nurse, dutifully providing bandages, migraine cures, and daily check-ins to Covid-19 shut-ins. She was a joyful presence at campus events, instantly recognizable in her bright dresses with color-coordinated beanies and puffer vests, her Birkenstocks, and her myriad holiday-themed accessories. She was a daily communicant in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel and a lunchtime regular in Gould Commons.

“She would say she has 150 kids, because she saw all the students as her children,” observed Dominique Huckins (’25). “She would say she was so lucky, because even though she never married, she would get new kids all the time.”

Yet as Nurse Nancy was first to acknowledge, it was much more than luck that brought her to Thomas Aquinas College — or, rather, brought Thomas Aquinas College to New England.

Raised as a Catholic in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, along with her seven siblings, Dr. Faller slowly drifted from the Faith while she attended nursing school in the 1960s on a U.S. Army scholarship. She graduated in the midst of the escalating Vietnam War, and soon found herself supervising night shifts at the Army’s 67th Evacuation Hospital in Qui Nhơn.

There she made the acquaintance of Sgt. David Rioux (’75), a critically injured member of the 101st Airborne Division who would go on to become a member of Thomas Aquinas College’s first graduating class. Dr. Faller, meanwhile, became an accomplished nurse and published expert in Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing, eventually earning a master’s degree from Russell Sage College and a doctorate in nursing from the University of Massachusetts. Nurse and patient lost touch after the war but reconnected decades later, becoming pen pals in 1995.

During one exchange, Dr. Rioux remarked that “Catholicism is the flower of Christianity” — a passing comment with eternal consequences. “In that one instant,” Dr. Faller observed, “I knew what the Catholic Church is, what it teaches; everything is true. I went to Confession and started going to Mass every day after that. My whole life changed.”

In the years to follow, Dr. Faller took up residence in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and, in no small part because of Dr. Rioux, became an admirer and benefactor of Thomas Aquinas College. In 2007, when a prep school tried to sell its campus in nearby Northfield, she and some friends began praying for the property to come into the College’s possession. Ten years later, those prayers were answered when the National Christian Foundation granted the property to the College.

For three years, Dr. Faller cared for Thomas Aquinas College, New England, as its first nurse. And over the last few months — as she suffered peacefully though the late stages of pancreatic cancer — Thomas Aquinas College, New England, cared for her.

This summer, Nurse Nancy moved out of her beloved home, which she generously willed, along with the entirety of her estate, to the College. Requiring regular assistance, she took up residence in an on-campus apartment with two members of TAC’s first New England graduating class, newlyweds Simone (Kelly) and Nathanael Cassidy (both ’22).

“She received the sacraments every day, in a beautiful place surrounded by the people she loved, knowing that all her kids were praying for her,” reflects Mrs. Cassidy, who serves as the campus’s admissions visit coordinator. “We cared for her physically, but she cared for us spiritually, and it’s been the best suffering and reward we’re ever going to have. It was a glimpse of Heaven, honestly.”

In her final hours, friends kept constant vigil as Nurse Nancy held on to her wooden Rosary in one hand and a crucifix in the other, alongside relics of the Holy Family and St. Anne. Students prayed for her at all-night Adoration in the Chapel, just as she for so long had prayed for them.

“She died surrounded by those she loved dearly,” says Mr. Cassidy. “She passed in complete peace. As she took her last breath, a small tear fell from her right eye, with Simone wiping it away. As she passed, those around her repeated the words, ‘Jesus I trust in You’ and ‘Lord, into Your hands I commend her spirit.’ After her pulse had faded, they prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Prayers After Death” from her father’s missal.

“Nurse Nancy walked this campus praying for Thomas Aquinas College to come to Northfield. And when, in answer to those prayers, we did come, she gave herself to our students and school with her whole heart,” says Dr. Steven Cain, dean of the New England campus. “It has been a grace for us to be able to return that love during her final illness. She has been part of the very fabric of the community here, and she will be sorely missed. May God shed the light of His face upon her in aeternum.”