February 5, 2024
Tomion, Nancy
January 9, 1936 – October 4, 2023
Nancy Anne Tomion, 87, whose longtime home was Alexandria, Virginia, died of natural causes on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023.
Born Jan. 9, 1936, in Clarence, New York, she was the first of three children born to John A. Mattison Jr. and Grace Hannah (Schweiker) Mattison. She was a bright star, who lit up any room she was in because she loved life itself. She was widely traveled, an avid theater goer, and a voracious reader. She also loved games, dinner parties and a good story — nobody was a more active and enthusiastic listener than Nancy — and when it comes to laughs, she was second only to her late husband Jack in the great laugh department!
Her family are beyond grateful to have had so much time with her — but know she’s being welcomed with open arms by Jack and their friends, who have been waiting for her. The world is a better place, and we are better people, because she was here.
A 1953 graduate of Clarence Central High School, she attended St. Lawrence University, graduating in 1957. During her undergraduate years, she studied abroad at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and loved her time traveling around Europe. Even into her twilight years, she spoke fondly of “autostoppen” around Germany and other Western European countries.
Nancy was interested in everything. Her journeys took her all over the United States, Europe and Asia. She loved to be in the center of the action – so much that she went to work in Vietnam in the late 1950s, lived in the Haight in the late 1960s, signed up to move to Japan with her husband while eight months pregnant in the early 1970s.
During her time in Saigon in the late 1950s, she met a young Navy officer named Jack Tomion, and they began a decade-long courtship that culminated in their marriage on Aug. 30, 1969, in Coronado, California. They moved into what they called their “starter home” in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1974, and stayed there -– with the brief exception of two years in Washington state – until early 2019, when they moved to a nearby senior community, and later that year to Massachusetts, to be near their daughter and her family.
Once more or less settled in the D.C. area, Nancy was an enthusiastic volunteer in Alexandria, at the Twig Thrift Shop and St. Agnes School, now St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School. She insisted on seeing as many shows as possible at the Kennedy Center and other venues around the city. No one knew as much about current events as Nancy, who read both the daily Washington Post and the Sunday New York Times from cover to cover. She was known to regularly inform her husband, who served in military intelligence, about what was really going on, especially in sports. No one she knew escaped getting relevant, or even tangential, news clippings in the mail.
She was predeceased by her parents and her husband of 53 years, retired Navy Captain Jack W. Tomion, and many lifelong friends. Survivors include her siblings, Judy and Bob, and their spouses, Dave and Kathryn, and her nieces and nephews, Kathy, Carolyn, John, Ryan and Noah, and their families. Survivors also include her daughter Lesley, grandson Jack, son-in-law Jeff; and a great many friends around the nation, especially in the Washington, D.C., area.
She will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery at 3 p.m. on Monday, April 15, 2024. Following the interment, a celebration of her life will be held in the D.C. area.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Signature Theater or the Kennedy Center.