L E G A C I E S

Joan Elizabeth Nixon, 75, formerly of Wabash, Indiana, died Monday, October 24, 2016, at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City.  She was born July 1, 1941, in Peru, Indiana, to Joseph and Marian (Hamp) Nixon.

She was a 1959 graduate of Knox High School, in St. James, NY, a 1964 graduate of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and received her Masters Degree in history from Indiana University in 1969.  She worked three years as a news photographer at the Frankfort Times, one of eleven companies in Nixon Newspapers.

From 1973-1976 Joan worked for Lavender Women Newspaper in Chicago, and from 1976-2014 she participated in a New York City Harvard study group on manic depression.  Joan was a driver for Bella Abzug, a U.S. Congresswoman, in 1976, and was her driver for 22 years, until Bella’s death.  Joan helped Hunter College, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and also sponsored, the Woman Band, the first feminist music festival in Sacramento, California.

Joan is survived by her sister, Eugenia Fulkerson, of Warsaw, Indiana, two brothers, Don Nixon, and Joseph Nixon, both of Indianapolis, Indiana.  She is preceded in death by her parents, and one brother, John Arthur Kautz Nixon.

Burial will be in Falls Cemetery, Wabash, at a later date.

 As per Grandstaff-Hentgen Funeral Service, Wabash, IN