Elizabeth Carr Foote Nicholls

LEBANON, NH- Elizabeth Carr Foote Nicholls, 92, died peacefully in her sleep in the early morning hours of February 12, 2011, at Harvest Hill in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Lib was born August 9, 1918, in Rockwood, Tennessee, to Eliza Stephens and Herbert Earl Carr. Her family moved soon after to Nashville, Tennessee, where she and her four sisters grew up. After graduating from Vanderbilt University in 1939, she taught school for two years before marrying her beloved Robert Miller Foote, of Fargo, North Dakota, in 1941, the year of his graduation from Vanderbilt Medical School. The young family was stationed during the war in Fort Worth, Texas, where their two children were born, and subsequently in New Orleans and Baltimore, before returning to Nashville in 1947. Lib and Bob raised their family there, where he continued his medical practice and teaching at Vanderbilt and at Saint Thomas School of Nursing, and she was very active in community activities, the Cheekwood Art Center, the Centennial Club, and West End Methodist Church. She enjoyed playing tennis and was also an enthusiastic and skilled bridge player, an avocation she continued for most of her life.
After Bob's sudden and tragic death in 1967, Lib persevered, working as director of the gift shop at Baptist Hospital and at Traveler's Rest museum in Nashville. She began taking art lessons and over the years created dozens of oils and watercolors that have brought appreciation and delight to her family and many friends. In 1970 she married William Hord Nicholls, an economist at Vanderbilt, and began a new and delightful phase of her life, in no small measure because to her own she added Bill's family, to whom she also became a beloved mother and grandmother. She and Bill traveled extensively with long periods spent in Brazil, where she learned Portuguese while Bill pursued research in agricultural economics. They came every summer to Little Birch Island in Lake Winnipesaukee, where Bill died unexpectedly in July, 1978, leaving her widowed a second time.
Once again Lib carried on, continuing to be active in a wide range of activities in Nashville. She helped care for her mother, Eliza Carr, and Bob's mother, Lottie Foote, making their later years happy and peaceful. She was director of weddings for West End Church for many years and played in the hand bell choir. Although she had many interests, her focus was on caring for her family, especially her seven grandchildren, to whom she was very devoted, almost never missing the important events and celebrations of their lives. The great sadnesses of her later years were the deaths of her daughter Elizabeth Foote Babb on February 12, 2004, her step-daughter Dorothy Nicholls Hilbink in 2006, and her step-son David Nicholls in1999. She was familiar with the Upper Valley through numerous visits to family in this area since 1976 and moved here permanently in 2006 after a period of declining health. She had been a resident of Harvest Hill since 2007, where she received the finest care from their skilled and loving staff. Ever the gracious host, she entertained many guests, people and dogs alike; her Southern charm and feisty sense of humor delighted those who stopped in to visit.
In addition to her husbands and children, she was predeceased by two sisters, Louise Carr Grissim, and Emily Carr Byrn, both of Nashville. She is survived by two sisters, Mary Jo Ellis and her husband Porter, of Nashville, and Jane Petty, of Wayne, Pennsylvania; her son, Robert, and his wife, Nancy, of Hartland; her son-in-law Oren Babb and his wife, Patricia, of Anniston, Alabama; her son-in-law Ronald Hilbink of Andover, Massachusetts; her grandchildren Robert Babb and his wife Gloria, of Boiling Springs, South Carolina; Russell Babb and his wife Janna, of Peoria, Arizona; Emily Foote, of Hartland Four Corners; Hannah Foote, of Burlington; and Nora Foote, of Boston; Lisa Hilbink and her husband Jamie Gerber, of St. Paul, Minnesota; Thomas Hilbink and his wife Susan Holmberg, of Brooklyn, New York; as well as eight great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. She was a linchpin for this wheel of family for many decades, and her generosity, her perseverance, her good spirits, and her determination to make the best of whatever happened and to make every day a new day is the legacy she leaves them.
A memorial service will be held at Harvest Hill on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Harvest Hill Residents' Fund, 121 Mascoma Street, Lebanon, NH 03766, or to a charity of one's choice. Burial will be in Nashville in the spring.