Nancy Jean Kurtzman

Oct. 23, 1950 – Oct. 25, 2025

Nancy Kurtzman died on Oct. 25, 2025, two days after she turned 75. Alzheimer’s disease had destroyed so much of who she was, but it never stole the sparkle from her blue eyes or changed the way she reached for the hand of her soulmate. Chuck Kurtzman, her husband of 49 years, was by her side as she slowly slipped away, the first visitor to arrive nearly every morning at the memory care facility Nancy called home for the past three years.

Don’t believe Hollywood. The Notebook is a fairy tale. Dementia is not cute or romantic; it is cruel and exhausting not only for the person suffering from it but for everyone around them. Each day brings a new indignity, an unexpected challenge, a sinking understanding that there’s no going back.

But Alzheimer’s doesn’t erase a life. Nancy lived for 75 complex and glorious years.

Now, she lives on in our memories.

She was impatient, impassioned, a fierce protector of those who were ignored or overlooked. She could sew or grow practically anything — ornate quilts and DIY Cabbage Patch Kids, lush gardens and leafy maples. She loved deals and sales and collecting whatever struck her fancy, from salt and pepper shakers to milk glass to toys for her nine grandchildren. To tell her you liked something — Dutch Crunch kettle chips, Star Trek Christmas ornaments, nutcrackers, PEZ dispensers — was to be lovingly buried in it.

She was more beautiful than she allowed herself to believe, with her gentle smile, shiny dark hair and those impish blue eyes.

A fraternal twin, Nancy was the second of eight children born to George and Sarah Bussinger in Dayton, Ohio. She attended St. Anthony’s, Ascension and Indian Ripple schools and graduated from Fairmont East High School in 1968. In 1973, she earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Wright State University.

In 1975, Nancy met Chuck during a blind date and, despite some boorish early behavior that would surprise everyone who knows him (seeing two girls at once — really, Dad?), she realized she’d found someone special. A man who completed her. A marriage proposal sealed their future.

The couple moved to Minnesota, where Chuck was from and where his company, Control Data, decided they would be living. They married in 1976 and had four children in rapid succession — Timothy, Lori, Kevin, Kristine — and settled in Circle Pines, a suburb of the Twin Cities.

Nancy was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years but was heavily involved in her city’s parks department, seeing to it that trees sprouted along the streets of her fledgling housing development. When she and Chuck needed a second income, she began working as a religious education coordinator at a local church and then earned a master’s degree in education from Bethel College.

In the years that followed, she taught children with special needs in elementary, middle and high schools throughout several school districts. These kids could be tough, even violent, but Nancy always felt kinship with misunderstood people.

She herself was easily misunderstood.

Nancy lived on the defense; her instinct was to guard herself and her feelings. She was proud and private and allowed few people into her inner circle, which means many never got to know the real Nancy. But those who did got to see her shine: her infectious, childlike love for birthday and holiday celebrations; the rush she got from scoring a bargain — sure, the purple dress was hideous, but it was marked down 95%; the way those blue eyes twinkled when she cracked a raunchy joke.

She was always moving. Like her husband, Nancy never sat still. There were gardens to weed and walls to paint and garage sales to visit. Weekends in the Kurtzman household were for projects, not leisure. Trips to their cabin in Pine City included boating and fishing but also hanging drywall and staining wood and hitting up local auctions for a lamp or a tractor or a box filled with unknown artifacts.

By the time Nancy retired in 2015, she and Chuck had tripled the size of their cabin, which should have provided a cozy backdrop for the next 30 years of gauzy sunsets. But her mind was beginning to falter in ways even she could no longer ignore. By 2017, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis confirmed that Nancy was starting to leave us.

A bright spot in all this darkness was the unearthing — and relief — of a painful secret Nancy had buried deep in her past. In quiet moments she kept from her other children, Nancy thought of the baby girl she’d surrendered for adoption in 1971. She wondered whether she’d ever meet this child, and what it would be like to introduce her family to her firstborn.

In 2018, Nancy finally met Andrea, as did the rest of her children. They found they shared not only facial features, hobbies and a tireless work ethic, but also — and perhaps most importantly — a healthy appreciation for cornball jokes. Nancy’s fears about her secret gave way to the unexpected gift of her children, all of five them, discovering a new side of her, and of themselves.

By 2022, Nancy’s disease had progressed to a point where Chuck was working around the clock to keep her safe, clean and fed. At the strong urging of his children, and after many, many facility visits, he finally entrusted his wife’s care to Edgemont Place in Blaine.

To her family’s surprise, Nancy’s health stabilized. She lived longer than expected, mostly due to the devotion of the man who visited her constantly, spending hours spooning food into her mouth and stroking her hand while she slept.

Even in the thick fog of Alzheimer’s, Nancy knew Chuck was there for her.

After she died, Chuck had her dressed in pink. He’d always loved how the color looked on her.

He held her hand for one last time.

Nancy’s life had changed drastically, but so had Chuck’s. His friends now included the doting husbands and heartbroken widowers he’d met at Edgemont, and the many caregivers who had gotten to know and love Nancy.

His life now looked different than the one he’d imagined. But you know what? That might be OK.

He had protected his wife, as he’d always pledged to do. He had 50 years of warm memories to reflect on. And he had a future — a vibrant one — built on the joy, love and family that he and Nancy had created together.