The naval base, a cherished institution with a rich history, had been ordered closed by the federal government to save money. It was a bitter time in the life of the city. So it was no wonder that she was a key player in the drama involving the closure of the Long Beach Naval Station in the 1990s. In 1990, she was named Preservationist of the Year. In 1986, Latimer founded the Coalition to Preserve Historic Long Beach, which later became Long Beach Heritage. She credited Karen Clements with teaching her everything about historic preservation.Ĭlements taught her well. At least not if their nearly seven decades of marriage is any indication.Įarly in her work on various city commissions, Latimer felt that preserving the historic past was not a high priority in the city, with “new is better” a more prevailing attitude. He said he and his wife used to talk about how they got married on the supposedly unlucky Friday the 13th - but that apparently didn’t apply. “We met on a blind date and had about three dates near Christmas, got engaged in April and got married on Friday, Aug.13, 1955.” “I was a Navy officer,” Bob Latimer said. Nancy Latimer met her husband in 1954 at the Long Beach Naval Station. Her grandfather, Horace Green, came to Long Beach from England in the 1880s and, as a lumberyard owner, built many early buildings, including the Green House in Signal Hill. 7, 1930, in Seaside Hospital (now MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center). “It was a beautiful 68-year run,” their son, Whit Latimer, said of his parents’ marriage.Ĭam Killingsworth, a past president of the Long Beach Rotary Club, which received the Latimer Family Scholarship Fund from the Latimers, called Nancy Latimer “a force of nature - one of a kind.” She had her favorite, gin and lemon juice over two ice cubes, which she liked to let melt.” We had cocktails the night before she died. “She was an eternal optimist who never complained. “She just took it one day at a time,” he added. “I think she just ran out of gas,” her widower said. She had a stroke in 2019, broke her hip during a fall in 2021 and had been bedridden for more than a year before she died, said her husband of 68 years, Bob Latimer. Latimer, a city native who founded the organization that would become Long Beach Heritage, died this week at her home, following several years of health challenges. Nancy Latimer, a teacher, community volunteer and passionate champion of historic preservation in Long Beach, has died.
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