Nancy Katherine Wickes

Oct. 21, 1928 - Feb. 11, 2020

Nancy K.Wickes, 91, passed away February 11, 2020 at her home in Berkeley. Born and brought up in Canton, Ohio Nancy (née Himmelright) attended Miami University, and earned a BA and MLS from Kent State University. She also lived in Congress Lake, Los Angeles, Scottsdale, and San Francisco and was a remarkable cook, a pilot, a traveler, and a bon vivant (she held a legendary 70th birthday party in Venice). Nancy cultivated the culinary arts, elegant entertaining, wine collecting and had a sharp wit. By profession a librarian, she was a passionate bibliophile who formed significant collections of Charles Dickens, Norman Douglas, Paul Bowles, and Victorian Women Travelers. She maintained active memberships in the Colophon Club and the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco, was a board member of the Book Club of California, a supporter of the CODEX Foundation, and had been a book dealer of Western Americana, a publisher (Bradstreet Press, THE GOOD LION by Ernest Hemingway), a member of the Mayflower Society (volunteer librarian at their Oakland Headquarters and Library), and the Society of Colonial Dames. She was preceded in death by her parents Robert J. Himmelright and Katherine D. Nusly, her brother R.J. Himmelright Sr., her former husbands, William H. Filter, Bradstreet Hoyt, Edward G. Wickes, and her son W. Jeffrey Filter. She is survived by daughters Susan K. Filter and her husband Peter R. Koch of Berkeley, Karen N. Filter of La Jolla, her daughter-in-law Victoria von Arx Filter, her grandchildren Elise A. Filter and George W. Filter, and her bother Paul G. Himmelright II. She was a book collector to the end.