Historian Nash, an authority on Cape founder Lorimier, mourned

Linda Nash, a longtime history teacher at Jackson High School and former executive director of Voices for Children/CASA in Southeast Missouri, is being remembered this week as an authority on local and regional history following her sudden passing Saturday at age 71.

Frank Nickell, retired Southeast Missouri State University historian and board president of Cape Girardeau’s Kellerman Foundation, recalls Nash as America’s expert on the life of Pierre-Louis deLorimier, the French-Canadian fur trader who led the settlement of Cape Girardeau in the late 18th century.

“(Nash) became the most knowledgeable person in the whole country about Lorimier,” said Nickell, who noted Nash painstakingly researched the trader’s life for decades and edited a book, written in both English and French, on Lorimier’s journals and published in 2012.

“This was really the first significant publication about Lorimier that came out of this region,” Nickell said.

“She took great interest in Lorimier partly because Linda had some Native American ancestry and Lorimier himself had been in a long-term relationship with a Shawnee woman, Charlotte P.B. Lorimier.”

Lady Lorimier is said to have the first marked grave in Cape Girardeau’s Old Lorimier Cemetery and her tombstone describes her as a “consort” of the legendary trader.

“I asked Linda how she became interested in Lorimier and she told me she had attended Lorimier Elementary as a child and was forever curious about him,” Nickell said. The old Lorimier School is the present Cape Girardeau City Hall at 401 Independence St.

In a 1994 article in the Southeast Missourian, Nash referred to her lifelong interest in Lorimier as “my magnificent obsession,” adding Lorimier “apparently spoke numerous Indian dialects [dealing] with 22 different tribes [while] serving as an Indian agent for the British, the Spanish and Americans” during his lifetime.

Teacher and grant writer

Nash taught history for 31 years at Jackson High School and after retiring in 2003, secured nearly $2 million in grants through the U.S. Department of Education “to make history come alive in the classroom,” according to a 2008 article in this newspaper.

Matt Lacy, an assistant superintendent in the Jackson School District, taught history for four years in the district and said Tuesday he was a direct beneficiary of the first grant Nash secured.

“The grant brought in experts from across the country, including Yale, to lecture on Jackson’s high school campus,” he said, adding the money also served history teachers from a dozen Southeast Missouri districts in a three-year “Presidents and Precedents” program.

“(Nash) was very passionate about empowering others to become knowledgeable about history,” said Lacy.

Ran CASA

After retiring from Jackson High, Nash served as executive director of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Southeast Missouri, now rebranded as Voices for Children, until March 2018.

Voices for Children serves foster children in the 32nd Judicial District (Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Perry counties) and the 33rd District (Scott and Mississippi counties).

The job of court-appointed advocates, Nash said in 2015, is to talk to foster parents and make sure children placed in their care are having their needs met.

“It’s a ‘check up on,’ not a push or a shove; it’s another set of eyes on children to see they’re getting what they need,” she said at the time.

“Her love for children was embedded in (Linda’s) heart (and) she was a positive light in kids’ lives,” said Judy Cantoni, East Missouri regional director of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, who served with Nash as one-time president of the Voices for Children/CASA Foundation Board of Directors.

“She was all about doing right for the kids and making their lives better,” she said, noting Nash had a green thumb and was adept at flowers and gardening in general.

Born in Bonne Terre, Missouri, Nash was a graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Southeast Missouri State University.

Nash, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is survived by her husband of nearly 42 years, Philip; by two children; by five stepchildren; and by a brother and a sister.