Nancy Dowd, chemist and corporate trailblazer, dies

Nancy Dowd, a lifelong Rockville Centre resident, died on July 4 after losing a battle with cancer. She was 79.

According to her brother, John, Nancy attended St. Agnes Elementary and High schools where she was active in the chemistry club and served as captain of both the basketball and tennis teams. She graduated near the top of her class before moving on to The College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, N.J. where she continued her academic and athletic pursuits, earning a B.S. degree in chemistry and serving as captain of the basketball and tennis teams in her senior year.

After graduating from St. Elizabeth in 1954, Dowd began to pursue what would become an extremely successful career as an analytical chemist at Pfizer Inc., said her niece, Susan Palmer. She earned a master’s degree in chemistry and was able to work her way up to an executive position. She became director of the Scientific Affairs, Quality Control Division at Pfizer corporate headquarters, a role she held for more than 45 years until her retirement in the late 1990s.

During her years at Pfizer, Dowd developed several processes and testing patents and contributed to many scholarly papers and professional periodicals. One of her most well known papers, “An Automated Method For The Determination Of The Cyanocobalamin In Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms” was published by The New York Academy of Sciences in 1965. Her brother said she also enjoyed participating in company-sponsored sports while at Pfizer. She was a contributing player on both the basketball and bowling teams for the sake of exercise, fun and employee camaraderie.

At that time, becoming a career woman was a remarkable feat, Palmer said. “A trailblazer, she was.”

Dowd was one of the largest individual benefactors of her alma mater, St. Elizabeth, and she served as a charter member of the New Founders Society and was a also member of the Tower Circle alumnae group. In addition, she was a benefactor of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception and many other charitable organizations, too numerous to mention, said her brother, John. On the home front, she was treasurer of the Fortnightly Club of Rockville Centre and she particularly enjoyed playing the flute at their “Music for Fun” events.

“Nancy was generous to a fault,” John said.

Palmer said that Benjamin S. Dowd, Nancy’s father, played a crucial in fundraising for the construction and expansion of St. Agnes Cathedral, which was largely responsible for the increased Catholic population in the village. She said Nancy rode her bike the two miles from her home to church every day, rain or shine, after she retired. She served on the St. Agnes Parish Council from 2001 to 2003 and was a parishioner at the cathedral for nearly 80 years.

“She was a devout Catholic,” Palmer said. “Church was very important in Nancy’s life.”

Nancy was also passionate about tennis, golf, sailing and painting, in addition to bike riding. She had two golden retrievers, Jack and Zack, whom she loved dearly, her niece said. Nancy was also an avid swimmer, heading down to Point Lookout or Eisenhower Park to swim 1,000 meters every day.

“She really was a very athletic and energetic woman,” Palmer said. “I think that is what helped her fight cancer.”

While pursuing her corporate career, Nancy cared for her parents, Benjamin and Gertrude who lived until 91 and 99, respectively. Although she never married, her life was full of company, said her niece. One of seven children, Nancy had four brothers, John, Aaron, Owen and Benjamin, and two sisters, Mary Jane Hammett and Joan DelCastillo.

“[I] knew her as an early childhood caretaker and athletic mentor, who was [my] constant companion when Mom wasn’t around,” John Dowd said. “Although I was a ‘bratty’ burden, she never let it show and was a loving and loyal sister to me and the rest of her siblings.”

Her 25 nieces and nephews, 75 great-nieces and nephews and four great-great-nieces and nephews comprised a large family, and she was its center, Palmer said.

“She was a homestead,” Palmer said of her aunt’s lifelong residence on Canterbury Road. “Everybody flocked there to see her.”

“No doubt all who knew her will truly miss her,” John Dowd said.

Five of Nancy’s siblings, as well as all of her nieces and nephews, survive her. Her brother, Benjamin, predeceased her.

Nancy laid in repose at Macken Mortuary on July 6. A funeral Mass was held the next day at St. Agnes Cathedral. Interment took place at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, immediately following the service.