Walking, waving Lincoln lady dies at 95

Elinor P. Nichols

By Kathleen Nichols and Katie Creel

Elinor P. Nichols of Lincoln, an indomitable Lincoln walker with a globe-trotting past, died on Sept. 7, 2022. She was born March 11, 1927 in Nagpur, India. Being “from the jungles of central India” was her first story in a lifetime of stories lived and told. It explained the village Hindi she learned from her nanny and the frequency with which she got lost in concrete jungles: “If I had an elephant, I’d be fine,” she would tell the passerby who showed her the way.

While big sister Carol stayed in the bungalow, Elinor and older brother Gale roved narrow paths in search of things different than home. There was the morning the python dropped on them from above. There was the evening the tiger stalked them home and they could not let themselves break into a run, lest they be chased.

Elinor’s boundless compassion was born in the starving India of the 1930s. She fed her chapattis to famished dogs at the railway station. She slept with orphaned baby squirrels. After leaving her parents, Esther Gale and Kenneth Lyon Potee, to board at Kodaikanal International School, a British hill station, she experienced hunger firsthand. Privation rooted her life in gratitude: if you’re alive and not hungry, It’s Good Enough.

At school, when Elinor wasn’t attracting suitors with her sunny disposition, she was rescuing the brown rats that the kitchen cooks caught, strangled, and threw over the wall into the school playground. The rats that survived till morning she wrapped in a pair of underpants so they couldn’t bite, hid them in her dresser, fed them until they recovered, then released them near the kitchen.

Elinor started Oberlin College in the middle of World War II. To her naïve eyes, America was an alien place with alien values: money, bridge, alcohol, movies, and cigarettes. It took twelve weeks for her mother’s comforting letters to answer Elinor’s homesick ones.

Her college majors, sociology and psychology, helped make sense of things, and people. After marrying Roger Nichols, she earned a master’s degree in psychiatric social work (the first class to graduate from that program at the University of Iowa). As her class of three crossed the stage, the dean whispered to her, “You’re the best student we’ve ever had.” Following a year of visiting patients at home, Elinor gave birth to Kathleen and Wendy.

To pay off medical school debts, the family decamped in 1957 to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, a small compound built on rocky, barren hills near the world’s most productive oil well, Dammam #7. Camels instead of elephants, deserts instead of jungles, more admirers of her vim: to Elinor it felt like home. Being cute in a tennis dress was fun. Driving a forehand shot to the far baseline was more fun. Yet when imminent loss dispirited her opponent, Elinor threw the game — invisibly and gently. Winning didn’t mean diddly-squat. Jogging home after three sets in 110℉, tennis shoes squishy wet, she thought she could never be happier. Happiness was also water skiing on the Persian Gulf, jumping the wake — until she wiped out and fell into a salty sea of jellyfish and sea snakes.

In another life, Elinor would have been an archeologist. Clambering between pre-Islamic ruins, she could see camouflaged blonde chert arrowheads where others saw only rocks. She led Girl Scout troops into the desert to scramble up jabals (mountains) and explore riverbeds. Around campfires at night her guitar and sweet voice led the singing. When her son Quaife was born in 1961, she sang him spirituals and folk songs.

Inheriting an Arabian mare posed a challenge. She knew her Indian elephants but it was obvious that horses were too big and frightening to ride so she exercised Sheer by walking her in circles. Her Girl Scouts snickered, “Mrs. Nichols, we’ve been talking and we think you’re too scared to ride Sheer.” “I’m not scared,” she said, “I just need the exercise.” The girls hoisted her ninety-six pounds into the saddle. Soon, she was cantering yellow dunes. Soon, galloping the endless beaches.

Twice the family drove 4,000 miles from London to Arabia, jerry cans of water strapped to the bumpers of a Land Rover, Elinor handing sandwiches to her three children riding outside on the hood and roof. From Istanbul in the west to Sharjah in the east, in souks and harbors, her Hindi opened doors — a gold smuggler in Dubai offered her passage on his sailing dhow — but it was humor, kindness, and warmth that won her a world of friends. Those who shared their addresses received years of airmail postcards, an honor they returned by arriving on her doorstep at nap time — horrifying.

In 1970, Elinor moved to a marsh island in Cohasset Harbor, south of Boston, where she discovered a plethora of animals that needed her. She fed the possums, porcupines, ducks, chipmunks, and squirrels. She fed the coyotes and foxes that eat them. Spying from a mile away her white Toyota heading home, red-tailed hawks circling overhead screeched for their daily chicken wings. On the front lawn, raccoons dined on dog food. When an exhausted mother of five kits leaned against Elinor to rest while her babies ate from Elinor’s cupped hands, the two mothers needed no words.

Amirah, her Newfoundland, roamed the nearby beaches in search of picnics. The phone would ring: “Come get your dog. She just ate our hot dogs.” Elinor would jump into a canoe and paddle across the harbor. Willingly, Amirah would clamber into the bow and ride serenely until a seagull flew by, whereupon she’d capsize the canoe and paddle towards Portugal.

Unable to pay the mortgage on Bailey’s Island, Elinor and Roger founded University Associates for International Health, a nonprofit. Staffing Arabia’s hospitals and professional schools sent Elinor crisscrossing Eurasia to interview and hire hundreds of employees.

After Roger became director of Boston’s Museum of Science in 1981, Elinor threw herself into organizing blockbuster exhibits and raising money to build an Omni theater. Widowed at age 60 in 1987, her stories of Ramses the Great drew crowds to their final exhibit.

Elinor gave her grandchildren the world. Riding camels past the Great Pyramid of Giza was not enough; they searched for better pyramids, got lost, and ended up in an Egyptian Army firing range. At age 85, Elinor moved to Lincoln, wrote a memoir, True Tales of Jungle India, and explored her new town, walking four miles a day, every day, in every weather. She waved to bus drivers, talked to police officers, pet dogs, and told her stories to whomever would listen — which, it turned out, was everyone.

She is survived by her children, Kathleen, Wendy, and Quaife Nichols, and her grandchildren Kathleen and Roger Creel, and Wellesley, Denver, and Alex Nichols.

A memorial service in her honor will be held on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 1 pm at the First Parish Church. Please RSVP here for the preceding luncheon at noon. Donations in her honor may be made to the Nature Conservancy.

Editor’s note: Following is a remembrance written and posted on LincolnTalk by Kathleen Nichols.

In the beginning she walks easily. Four miles a day, seven days a week, no matter the weather. Eager to meet you, wanting to hear your story, ready to tell a story, hoping your dog was friendly.

Thanks, nice dogs large and small, for warm fur and wet kisses.

Thanks, Lincoln Garden Club, for the water fountain and the beauty of Peace Park. She needed both.

Thanks to Lincoln’s school children who, racing past on Wednesday afternoons without knocking her down, gave of their exuberance.

Thanks, Lincoln, for offering her rides on wet and cold days. And for accepting when she cheerfully and unequivocally declined. Declining made her feel stronger.

She needs a cane now, hearing aids, glasses. She forgets your names and faces, is amazed you know hers.

Thanks, Lincoln Police Department, for protecting her crosswalk and listening to her tall tales.

Thanks, Lincoln Library, for supplying a steady stream of good books.

She wears out several canes. Now switches to a rollator — red — so she can paint the town. Miles per day decreases to three. Pace: slow but resolute.

Thanks, Lincoln, for calling her an inspiration; it made her try harder.

Thanks, bus drivers of Doherty’s Garage, for every honk, wave, smile.

Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Thanks, young biker who shouted, “Hello, Invincible!”

Pierce Hill Road gets steeper. She stops to rest in the middle of the road. Thanks for stopping to ask if she’s ok. And for telling her to move over.

Onwards and upwards she walks.
It takes three heart attacks to stop her.

When last seen, Mama was heading east towards Harvard Medical School, eager to tell her story to medical students studying anatomy.

Thanks, Lincoln, for seeing, accepting, protecting, and cherishing her.