McMurray, Nancy A. 1936-2006
McMurray, Nancy A. 1936-2006
(Nancy Armistead McMurray, Yowa)
OBITUARY NOTICE—
See index for CA sketch: Born June 5, 1936, near Kananga, Belgian Congo (now Zaire); died of ovarian cancer, August 25, 2006, in Martinsburg, WV. Illustrator, publisher, and author. McMurray was a graphic designer and magazine founder best known for her 1972 autobiographical book, The Becoming of Ruth. The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she graduated from Mary Baldwin College in 1959, earning a master's in theater from Harvard two years later. During the early 1960s and 1970s, McMurray taught art at public schools in and around Washington, DC. Her conversion to Judaism in 1970 was a profound personal experience, which she recorded in her autobiography, published under the pen name Yowa. McMurray was a graphic designer for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington from 1980 to 1985, and she worked in publications for the University of Maryland's theater department from 1986 to 1998. In 1992, she also helped found the community magazine Women's Monthly. McMurray contributed to the Jewish Spectator and wrote a second book, When Man Is an Artist (1966).
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Washington Post, August 29, 2006, p. B6.