Nancy Katharine Steele

Nancy Steele, age 80 of Blue Earth passed away Wednesday March 29, 2023 at the Oaklawn Care Center in Mankato. A memorial service will be held at 11am at Patton Funeral Home on Saturday, June 17, 2023 with Rev. Russ Jacobsen officiating. A time of fellowship will follow until 2pm. Burial took place at Pilot Grove Cemetery.

Nancy Katharine Lowry was born on February 5, 1943, in Cleveland, Ohio to William and Katharine (Hellwig) Lowry. She was confirmed at St. John’s Lutheran Church of Highland Heights, Ohio in 1956. She graduated from the Andrews School in Willoughby, Ohio in 1962, from Case-Western Reserve University with a B.A. in 1966 and Minnesota State University, Mankato with a B.S. in 1967.

Steele used her education to provide media and library services as well as teach in northern Iowa for 11 years before working at the Blue Earth Community Library for 22 years, first as assistant director, then as director for 12 years. In 2001 she took the position as director of the regional multitype, multicounty library system with an office in Mankato, Minnesota. She retired in 2009.

She married Ramon LeRoy Steele in 1966 and they lived in Blue Earth where he worked in law enforcement. Ramon died in 1998.

Nancy was active in supporting the arts and served on both the Region 9 Arts Council and the Prairie Lakes Arts Council. She was an active visual artist working in oils but also experimenting with other mediums. She edited the first edition of Kiester’s History of Faribault County up to 1896, and worked with a committee to edit and publish the second volume of Kiester’s History of Faribault County.1896-1903.

Survivors include brother-in-law Eldon and Reta Steele of Blue Earth; nieces and nephews: Carle Schrage of Lakeworth, Florida; Adam Cargile and daughter Lacy of Blue Earth; Christopher Cargile of Cleveland, Ohio; Lyndon Steele and Diane Connors of Elko; Sheldon Steele and Rene' Durhman of Grand Meadow and special friends, Ed and Linda Dreiman of West St. Paul; Les and Gail Pearson of Blue Earth; Jan and Linda Willette of Minneapolis.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, twin sister, Joan, in 1999 and brother-in-law Vernon C. Steele in 2015, her niece Angela (Steele) and her husband David Powell and Catherine Olson.