Nancy Alice Leon Gershon

Nancy Alice Leon Gershon passed away on September 8, 2022, ten days before her 87th birthday, of multiple medical causes.

Nancy grew up in the Midwood section of Brooklyn NY, oldest child of Joseph and Mildred Leon. As a child, shewas a stellar student and most of all an enthusiastic and oft-awarded musician, studying piano and flute. She made a recording of a classical piano piece in a back-of-the-record-store studio as a teenager and dedicated it the “the best daddy in the world, for Father's Day.” Her younger cousin Tom Lipton recalls listening to her practice for hours with special focus.

After graduating from James Madison High School, she graduated from Barnard College, majoring in math, and continued to obtain a master’s degree in education from Teacher's College.

Nancy married Richard J. Gershon of Manhattan NY, son of Frances Berthoff Gershon and Victor Gershon, on June 17, 1957. She worked as a calculator – a pre-computer-era job– at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory in Cambridge MA, while he attended Harvard Business School. After his graduation, they moved to Queens NY, where she worked as a substitute high school math teacher until she became a mother in August 1959.

Nancy and Richard moved to Vineyard Lane in Westport CT in 1963. They later moved to Moss Ledge Road in Westport. Her four children, born in a span of six years, kept her busy but her devotion to music continued as she took up cello in the mid 1960's. She was a cello student of Jascha Bernstein of New York. She played in the Norwalk (CT) Symphony and annually in the orchestra accompanying a Gilbert and Sullivan production, as well as informal chamber groups in Westport. Nancy passed along a love of music to all of her children via instrument lessons and by accompanying them with her piano playing, and her oldest child went on to a career as a professional musician.

Nancy and Richard divorced in 1980, and she continued to live on Moss Ledge Road for rest of her life. Once her nest was empty, she continued with musical activities, including learning jazz piano and taking up saxophone, which she played with enthusiasm in music school ensembles until failing health made doing so impossible. She also studied computer science at Norwalk Technical College. She was an inveterate bargain hunter and among other things, accumulated many instruments, over fifteen saxophone stands and large quantities of music books, which her musician son has been distributing to music students.

She is survived by her children, Russ of Chelsea MA, and Andrew, Jill and Laurie of Manhattan, NY, her daughter-in-law Gail Levitt Gershon of Manhattan, her former daughter-in-law Alessandra Mariano of Gardone Riviera, Italy, her grandchildren Luca Gershon of Chelsea MA, Alex Gershon of Manhattan NY, and Sophie Gershon of San Francisco CA, her sister Maryanne Lehrer of Oceanside NY and her brother Dr. Robert Leon of Scottsdale AZ. She was ably cared for in her home by Lorna Jones for the last six years of her life.