Nancy Madeline Luton, a gifted artist, poet, teacher, and mother, passed away peacefully in her Houston home on Tuesday August 18th 2020 from complications of cancer. She was 76 years old.
Nancy was born in Ft. Worth on January 16th 1944 to rancher and banker John Sidney Luton, and teacher Doris Zweifel Luton. She was raised on the family’s ranch in Granbury, TX with her older sister Suzanne and younger brother John Henry Luton.
Always the scholar, her prodigious and lifelong love of education and study began at Granbury High School, where her mother was her English teacher. From there she attended Stephens College in Columbia, MO, before completing her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in Austin.
She married Charles Francis Tynan of New York City in 1967 and lived first in NYC and then in Peekskill, NY where she had three sons, William, John, and Christopher. The family moved to Houston in 1978. It was here that Nancy raised her sons and attended the University of Houston where she obtained first her Masters and then PhD in English literature. She was a professor of English at the University of Houston for years before finally retiring in 2002.
After teaching, fine art became her inspiration and she attended the Glassell School of Art, where she reveled in the artistic atmosphere and comradery of the print making classes. She selflessly purchased a large printing press for the fledgling Burning Bones Press in Houston and was a patron to so many of the friends and artists she encountered. Nancy’s house brimmed with art collected over her life and was an attestation to her belief in the curative and restorative power of making art.
She was an adoring grandmother to her three beautiful granddaughters Holly, Audrey, and Leah and shared with them her love of literature and art. She touched so many and will be greatly missed by us all.
Survivors: Sister, Suzanne Luton Woodruff and husband, Forester, of Renton, Wash., and Brother, John Henry Luton and wife, Marilyn, of Granbury; Son William Tynan of Houston, Son John Tynan and his three daughters Holly, Audrey, and Leah Tynan of Houston, TX, son Christopher Tynan and wife Kathryn Bundschu Tynan of Napa, CA,
In acknowledgement of our current health crisis, a small, private ceremony will be conducted in Granbury and a celebration of Nancy’s life will occur at a future date.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Print Maters Houstons Nancy Luton Student Scholarship Fund here: https://www.printmattershouston.org/nancy-luton-student-scholarhip-fund