Nan K. Lynch

Nan K. Lynch

GUILDERLAND — Nan K. Lynch, who showed great perseverance in the face of a four-decade struggle with a slowly progressive disease, died Jan. 8, 2016 at her Guilderland home, with her husband of almost 40 years at her side. She was 64.
She loved caring for children, being physically active, and playing the flute, according to her husband Gerald L. Lynch, Jr.

She struggled, beginning in her 20s, with Type 1 Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy, which Mr. Lynch said is the most common type of MD and is “slowly progressive.”

Mrs. Lynch was born on December 27, 1951 to the late Donald A. Blanchard and Joan (née Donohue) Blanchard. Her father was in advertising, and the family — who lived first on Long Island for many years, and then in Connecticut, where Nan graduated from Cheshire High School in 1970 — loved sailing.

It was sailing that first gave the family any indication that there was something wrong with Mrs. Lynch’s muscles, Gerald remembered. During a race, she would haul in on a sail and then couldn’t let go; the line would be locked in her hands, her husband said. This was their first indication that she had myotonia, or the inability to relax.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut in Storrs in 1974, Mrs. Lynch worked as a travel agent.

She married Mr. Lynch in August 1977 and continued to work in the travel business.

Their first, and only surviving, child, Gerald L. Lynch III, was born in Concord, New Hampshire in May 1980.

After the family moved to the Albany area in January 1982, they had a daughter, Anoria Kathleen Lynch, who died as an infant.

Mrs. Lynch was a full-time mother for many years, and she worked at a variety of part-time jobs in the Guilderland School District and as a nanny and volunteer. “She loved being around kids, and the kids liked being around her,” Gerald said.

One of her volunteer positions, her husband said, was rocking babies at Albany Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit. This was the same spot where their daughter Anoria had spent “her entire life of 63 or 64 days.” After Anoria died, Mr. Lynch said, the NICU was “the last place” he wanted to return to, but his wife went back again and again to spend time with babies. She stopped, he said, only when her symptoms eventually made it unsafe for her to hold them.

The severity of the disease is worse for those who show symptoms earlier, he said, and both of their children were born with it.

Mrs. Lynch loved to play the flute and was good at it, said Mr. Lynch. “One of the first things I did for her after we got married was have her flute completely refurbished.” She played often, he said, until pursing her lips to make a sound became too difficult.            

And she loved to swim, he said. The Lynches had a social membership in the Pinehaven Country Club, and she would “get in the pool and swim a mile. I bet she’s one of the few people that swam a mile in that pool.” He said, “She wasn’t going fast or anything. But she had a beautiful stroke.”

***

Nan Kathleen Lynch is survived by her loving husband, Gerald L. Lynch, Jr., and one of her two children, Gerald L. Lynch III.

She is also survived by two sisters, Joan Coleman (née Blanchard) of Guilderland, and Ellen Mary Finlay (née Blanchard) of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and her husband Christopher William; one brother, Donald A. Blanchard of Foxboro, Massachusetts; two parents-in-law, Gerald L. Lynch and Dorothy (née Meehan) Lynch, of West Babylon, New York; two sisters-in-law, Patricia (née Lynch) McGrath, of West Palm Beach, Florida, and Susan (née Lynch) Fryc, of Warwick, Rhode Island, and her husband Robert; a brother-in-law, James Meehan Lynch of Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and his wife Elizabeth; five nieces and nephews, numerous cousins-, aunts-, and uncles-in-law; three godchildren; and numerous young adults that she cared for years ago as a nanny. 

Calling hours are Wednesday, Jan. 13, at the DeMarco-Stone Funeral Home aat 5216 Western Ave. in Guilderland. Funeral services are Thursday, Jan. 14, at 9:15 a.m. from the DeMarco Stone Funeral Home in Guilderland followed at 10 by a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Madeleine Sophie Church, 3500 Carman Rd. in Guilderland, where Mrs. Lynch was a communicant for more than three decades.

Burial will be on Friday at St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, New York.

Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at demarcostonefuneralhome.com

Memorial contributions may be made to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at 501 St. Jude Pl., Memphis, Tennessee 38105; St. Madeleine Sophie Church, 3500 Carman Rd., Schenectady, New York 12303; or the Muscular Dystrophy Association, 3330 East Sunrise Dr., Tucson, Arizona 85718.

—Elizabeth Floyd Mair

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