Lasting Memories

Nancy Lou ("Lalu") Kiesling
March 25, 1932-Dec. 9, 2020
Menlo Park, California

Nancy Lou Hunt Kiesling, Menlo Park resident and retired bookstore owner, passed away peacefully at home on December 9, 2020 after a brief illness. Her great pleasure was in introducing children to nature, including as a teaching volunteer at the Palo Alto Junior Museum, Hidden Villa Ranch, and the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The Book Rack, her used paperback shop on Santa Cruz Avenue, was for 22 years a haven for those who shared her joy in reading, as well as a place for family and friends to launch their books. Faithful companions over the decades included Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian's Royal Navy.

“Lalu,” as she was lovingly known to her family, was born in Houston, Texas in March 1932, the first of four children to Wilmer Brady Hunt, a district court judge, and Eugenia Flewellyn Howard Hunt, the artistic daughter of a prominent Houston surgeon. Nancy graduated from Stanford University in 1953 and returned to Houston to teach junior high school science. In December 1955, she married fellow Houstonian Roy A. Kiesling, Jr. [1934-2012], newly graduated from Yale and about to enter the University of Texas Law School in Austin. They had three children in rapid succession, and a fourth after relocating to the eastern fringe of Palo Alto in 1960. A Master’s degree from Stanford followed in 1964.

The 1960s and 70s included moving to a creaky older house in Los Altos, family camping/canoeing trips, the Junior League, but also hosting the Parapsychology Research Group, a gopher-permeated vegetable garden, and teaching Native Californian survival arts like obsidian-knapping and acorn preparation. Efforts with like-minded intellectuals to build an intentional community did not progress far, but there was service on the Coop supermarket board, Jungian analysis and similar travels, including with the Sierra Club to the Galapagos Islands and mythic tours led by Joseph Campbell. The dissolution of her marriage prompted new exploration; she spent several years in a tiny trailer, with an outhouse and majestic Bay views, atop the then undeveloped Hayfields parcel in Portola Valley.

Acquiring a row house in Menlo Park and the Book Rack (1988) meant a new structure to her life as well as a place to hang favorite paintings. Visits to far-flung offspring brought pleasure and adventure. Local theater and ballet companies, the League of Women Voters, the Academy of Sciences, and other memberships were outlets for her wide, non-judgmental curiosity. A fire in the restaurant next door put an end to the Book Rack in 2010, and heart troubles gradually made her excursions fewer and more cautious.

Nancy’s Catholic faith, esthetic rather than dogmatic, enriched her life. She loved sung Latin mass, a counterpoint to her botanical Latin, and she baked uncounted hundredweights of brownies for the congregations of St. Anne’s and later St. Thomas’s Church. For many years, her driver to church and source of beautiful flowers was Lou Gado of Los Altos, a gentleman admirer who passed away early this year. Nancy and a few cherished friends attended the annual Bach Festival in Carmel for decades.

Nancy is survived by younger brothers Grainger Hunt, a zoologist, and Sperry Hunt, a writer-musician. A beloved sister, novelist Robin McCorquodale died in 2014. Nancy leaves four children. Daughter Eugenia (Jennie) Kiesling (spouse Peter Law) is a history professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Son Brady (Regina Tassitano) is a former U.S. diplomat, archaeologist, and writer based in Athens, Greece. Stephen (Mary Bemis), an Olympic oarsman in 1980, is a writer and magazine editor in southern Oregon. Roy (Birgit Rehder) is an industrial design/production expert in Burlingame, CA. Eldest granddaughter Lydia Kiesling (Tim Quayle) is a novelist living in Portland OR, with two young daughters; younger grandchildren Alexandra, Tim, Brady J., Casey, and Tommy, are in various stages of medical school, university, or high school.