"Nancy Elizabeth Gorrell, beloved artist, illustrator, environmentalist, educator, activist, and devoted mother, grandmother, and friend, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family, on the evening of Dec. 19, 2025. Nancy was born on Aug. 16, 1937, in Watsonville, California, to Emma Lorraine Dalton (nee Franzen) and Herbert Francis Dalton. Nancy and her three brothers (John, Ernest and Stuart Dalton) grew up on the family apple ranch."
"She moved to Oakland in 1954 and graduated from Oakland High School in 1955. Always a talented artist, Nancy attended the California College of Arts and Crafts with a full ride scholarship. It was there that Nancy met and married her first husband, artist Robert Bechtle, with whom she parented her children Max Bechtle and Anne Bechtle Higgins. After a divorce, Nancy married architect Mark Gorrell in a lively ceremony on the Winter Solstice in 1982. They were married until his passing in 2011."
Nancy Elizabeth Gorrell was born Aug. 16, 1937 in Watsonville and grew up on a family apple ranch where she developed a lifelong love of nature. She moved to Oakland in 1954, graduated Oakland High School in 1955, and attended the California College of Arts and Crafts on a full scholarship. She married artist Robert Bechtle and had two children, Max and Anne, and later married architect Mark Gorrell in 1982. She lived in Berkeley for 60 years, engaged deeply in neighborhood organizing and the Mendocino Matronettes, and helped establish Indigenous Peoples Day while advancing recycling and zero-waste work locally and internationally.
Read at www.berkeleyside.org
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