Nancy Oster Heydt, 86, of The Villages, FL died peacefully at Cornerstone Hospice on April 29th, 2025.
Helen Oster brought Nancy into the world on December 11th, 1938 in Lakeport, CA, where Helen and her husband, Frank, owned Glen Eden Ranch. Nancy and Helen ultimately moved to Chicago, then Stevens Point, WI, until finally settling in Interlaken NJ in 1950 when Helen married Joseph Millar, a veterinarian who became Nancy’s beloved step-father (her own father having died in 1947).
Nancy attended Asbury Park High School, finishing in 1956. She graduated from Elmira College in 1960 and, after a short stint living and working in New York City, travelled the country as an admissions officer for Elmira from 1962 through 1965. From 1967 to her retirement, Nancy devoted herself as a social worker with the Monmouth County (NJ) Division of Social Services.
Nancy met the love of her life, John Heydt, in 1967 and they married on July 1st of that year. They lived in Neptune, NJ, from 1967 until 2005, when they moved to The Villages, FL.
Throughout her life, Nancy strove to make the world a more humane and fair place. She spent many hours volunteering for the Jersey Shore Medical Center, her union, and the Democratic Party. But her greatest labor of love was genealogy. From 1979, when she first heard the call, Nancy dedicated thousands of hours to family history. She documented her own family’s history, taught others how to undertake genealogical research, built genealogical and historical organizations, and wrote histories and many, many newsletters. Perhaps most significantly, Nancy originated the idea of Family History Month. The Monmouth Genealogical Society (which she helped found) initiated this celebration of family history in October of 1990. With tireless advocacy and letter-writing, Nancy built support for October as Family History Month, until it became adopted across the U.S. in 2001. The genealogical community recognized her hard work with Distinguished Service Awards that she received from the Federation of Genealogical Societies (1995) and the Monmouth Genealogical Society (2013).
Ultimately, however, Nancy’s devotion to her own family dwarfed all her other passions. While her husband, John, died in 2019, she is survived by loving relatives. These include her son and daughter-in-law, Colin and Stephanie Heydt of West Hartford, CT, and their three children, Charles, Eleanor, and William; and her step-son and daughter-in-law, John and Diane Heydt of Cannon Falls, MN, grandchildren Samantha Schaack and Alexander Heydt, and great-grandchildren, Teagan and Logan Schaack.