Nancy Jaicks Alexander

Nancy Jaicks Alexander, co-founder of the world’s first prison hospice, passed away on New Year’s morning from complications following a fall in late December. She was 88. Nancy was born to Kathryn Jaicks (née Agar) and Wilson Askew Jaicks, Sr. and was raised in Lake Forest, IL. She attended Concord Academy, in Massachusetts, and Northwestern University. While still a teenager, she began her life-long career in service to others with her first-ever job working at Bowen Country Club, the summer camp affiliated with Jane Addams’ Hull House. She moved west in 1953 and took a job as receptionist at the Elizabeth Arden Salon in San Francisco. She married attorney Edward A. Friend in 1956, and the couple had two children. Following their divorce, Nancy moved to Berkeley in 1971.

Through the Episcopal Church in San Francisco, she became involved in the social justice, anti-war, peace, and human potential movements of the 1960’s and 70’s. Nancy remained engaged in social movements and spiritual practice to the end of her life. She was always an active member of her local neighborhood associations, at times serving on their governing boards. She worked nearly fulltime on the anti-high rise development campaign in San Francisco championed by Alvin Duskin. She then became a staff member at the Displaced Homemaker’s Center in Oakland, a groundbreaking program for its time, helping women transition to work outside the home. She could relate to the Center’s clients from her own experience as a single mother, having found work only at Ozzie’s Soda Fountain in Berkeley after her divorce.

Ever a ‘seeker’, Nancy made a life-shaking decision in 1978 to dedicate herself to the human potential movement. She moved to Esalen Institute, at Big Sur, where she spent over a year as a work-scholar. She also undertook a spiritual quest in India. Upon her return to Berkeley in 1980, she began a long career on the international staff of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, co-leading “Life, Death and Transition” workshops around the world. At this time, she also made a devout commitment to Buddhist practice. In 1999, she was honored to meet and study with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and to complete Kalachakra Initiation. Nancy served on the Board of Directors of KQED, the Bay Area’s public broadcasting affiliate, during the vaunted station’s recovery from its most tumultuous era in the 1970s. She was part of the governing team that “righted the ship” after the entire staff left the station on strike over terrible working and wage conditions. During her tenure, the Board hired the station’s long-serving President, Anthony Tiano, who led the station to national prominence.

In 1984, Nancy married her true love, Robert Evans (Bob) Alexander, a prominent architect and city planner. They were very happy together until his death in 1992. As AIDS was emerging in 1985, Nancy and Bob began a support group for patients at the California Medical Facility for men in Vacaville. For the next 25 years, she visited the prison at least weekly, running a grief support group, initially for AIDS patients, and later for all terminally ill inmates and their peer caregivers. In 1996, the Vacaville program was recognized as the world’s first prison hospice, named in memory of Bob Alexander.

In 2010, upon Nancy’s retirement as the senior trainer and facilitator at the hospice, she received two significant honors. The California Bureau of Prisons issued to her its first-ever and only lifetime identification card and entrance pass. At the same time, leaders of the inmate community bestowed on Nancy the status of OG – “original gangster” – a title normally reserved for those serving (that is, incarcerated) for more than 25 years.

In 2011, Nancy was presented the Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service by her alma mater, Concord Academy, in recognition of her lifetime of humanitarian work. True to form, in her final years she served actively on the Resident Advisory Board at Piedmont Gardens senior community in Oakland.

She is survived by her two children, Donald Agar (Lisa) Friend of Mankato, Minnesota, and Mary Friend (Ken) Doane of Oakland, as well as three stepchildren, eleven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, one niece, five nephews, and numerous great nieces and nephews. In addition to Mr. Alexander, she was predeceased by her brothers Wilson A. Jaicks, Jr., Agar Jaicks, and David P. Jaicks, as well as two stepchildren and two nephews.

A memorial gathering will be held online at a day and time to be determined; for information, please email the family at NancyOGinfo@ gmail.com. Donations in her memory can be made to PCS/Hospice, and mailed to, Pastoral Care Services Program, California Medical Facility, PO Box 2000, Vacaville, CA 95696-2000.