The Peru Gazette

Two of Nan’s beautiful quilts

Nan and a dress ready for a needy child

By John T. Ryan 

Nan Mitchell is #46 in the Peru Gazette photo series of people who make Peru a wonderful place to live.  At age 91 Nan radiates wit, joyfulness and energy.

Many people know Nan for her quilting and needlework skills. Longtime friend Joanne Kennedy said, “ Her quilting is perfect. Her work is unbelievable.” Sewing is an activity Nan truly enjoys, so much so that over the past 12 years she has donated about 600 dresses to the Peru Community Church’s Jamaica Mission and the North Country Mission of Hope in Nicaragua. Her friend Reverend Paul Heller also brought 25 dresses to Africa. Nan is very grateful to friends who give her most of her fabric. She is especially grateful to Marianne Miller saying, “She gives me so much. I have no idea where she gets it.” 

Nan keeps so busy that she doesn’t reflect on why she’s been able to continue being so active. She said, “I didn’t have my children until I was in my 30’s. Back then women usually had their kids in their early 20’s, so I’ve alway had younger friends. It keeps me going because I have to keep up with the young people.”  She also truly enjoys what she does. “I’ve always liked to sew and I’m doing something worthwhile. I’m not just fiddling away my time. I often think that some little girl is getting a dress for the first time.”  

A southwestern Pennsylvania native, she graduated from high school in 1944.  For the next five years she worked as an F.B.I. fingerprint examiner in Washington D.C. She recalled, “When the vets came home the men were getting hired and promoted and we weren’t. You know how it was back then.” She then went to college, received a home economics degree and later married. Nan moved into Plattsburgh Air Force Base housing in 1967 when her husband Donald was assigned to Vietnam and a year later moved to Peru. In 1969 she became the Peru Nursery School’s first teacher and later taught at the OLVA Secretarial School. Don and Nan’s three daughters Tammy, Colleen and Susan graduated from Peru High School. 

Nan’s outside at 6 each morning to pick up her Press Republican. She said,”I have to do that crossword every day.” On Tuesdays and Thursdays she enjoys exercise classes at the Peru Community Church; on Wednesdays she gathers with a group of ladies to sew. Mornings are a good time for making dresses. She said, “I can make one before lunch with maybe a little finish work in the afternoon.” Nan also enjoys reading good book and watching television in her sun-lit four-seasons room. 

Anyone conversing with Nan Mitchell soon realizes that she truly values her friends, wonderful neighbors and family. As her former neighbor and friend Terri Sweeney says, “If Nan likes you, she’d stand on her head for you and she never didn’t like somebody. She has enriched my life greatly.” Nan’s other friends and neighbors would undoubtedly agree.