Nancy Laura Gillies Bonnett

October 12, 1943 – September 15, 2025

Nancy Laura Gillies Bonnett was a beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend. Nancy’s name transformed to Grancy when she became a grandmother, and then “Fancy Nancy” in her later years. Fancy Nancy had a shameless love for chocolate, purple, reading, beauty, and bling. After a full life, Nancy passed away at her home on Monday afternoon, 9/15/25, in the arms of her daughter.

People who knew Nancy often referred to her as quiet. Though those who really got to know her knew that behind her beautiful hazel-green eyes lay hidden depth, wisdom, gentleness, honesty, and love.

Nancy loved deeply. When Nancy’s daughter once asked if she loved her soon David more than she loved her, because David was her firstborn, Nancy quickly replied, “Love does not divide, it multiplies.”

Born on 10/12/1943 in Birmingham, Alabama, Nancy grew up in a home filled with resourcefulness, music, love, and faith. Her father (Bill) was an engineer, musician, and church leader at Norwood Baptist. Nancy was proud of her father for his carpentry and that he constructed much of the family’s furniture, which is still in use today. Nancy was also very proud that her mother (Lois), through self-study, became a lab technician. As a child she treasured time with her aunts and summers with her grandparents Hank and Minnie Gillies in Nantahala, North Carolina, where her grandmother taught her piano and her grandfather kept bees and even built a boat powered by a Mosel T Ford engine.

Nancy truly carried her parent’s gifts of ingenuity and determination. She went to Phillips High School and then attended what is now Samford University, where she met her husband, Bobby. Bobby (Bob) first noticed her in a statistics class, drawn to her beauty and, as he said, “she looked smart”. He asked her to help him study; she said no several times, until he invited her to a hootenanny, where he was in the band playing stand-up bass. She fell in love with his wit, humor, depth, devotion to her, his musical gifts, and deep baritone voice.

Nancy and Bob raised two healthy children and had a very happy life rooted in love, family, faith, and leisure. Since the early 1970s, Bob and Nancy were devoted members of Huffman Baptist Church. Nancy built a career as the Medical Records Director at the Jefferson County Hospital, following in the footsteps of her beloved Aunt Blanche.

Nancy loved reading so very much. She also delighted in card games, puzzles of all kinds, and Scrabble, where she was queen, still beating everyone into her later years.

Life also brought much heartbreak when Nancy lost Bob and her brother within six days of each other in 2012. Then she lost her son, David, to cancer on Christmas Day 2015. Yet she never let sorrow take away her faith, loving kindness, or childlike wonder.

Nancy traveled with her daughter and granddaughter to Hawaii, Disney World, Lake Tahoe, and even London for Christmas 2019, where she saw a live performance of A Christmas Carol. Her last trip was to Tulum with her daughter. She cherished those adventures and never let her Parkinson’s diagnosis stop her if she could help it.

The last few years Nancy lived between her home with her daughter in Mentone, AL, and Thrive at Brow Wood on Lookout Mountain, GA. She found friendship, connection, fun, and joy at Thrive. She especially loved her friendship with Hortense. The two of them were like Frankie and Grace. Nancy also loved going to her daughter’s restaurant, the Wildflower Cafe`. She especially loved to watch her daughter sing and perform at the Wildflower with Troubadour Tony Goggans.

Nancy’s brother Lewis had two children that saw Nancy as more than an aunt – she was a grandmother figure, steady and loving. All of her nephews agree with her niece Mishka, who said about her Aunt Nancy: “She made me feel loved when I felt so otherwise rejected. She always carried positivity in her heart, she was unable to be unkind. Her understanding, her willingness to understand. No one carried more love.”

Nancy is survived by her daughter Laura Catherine Moon (Moon), granddaughter Ignis Voronin, niece Mary Lou Michelle Gillies (Mishka), nephews Richard Thomas Bonnett, Jr (Rick), Robert William Bonnett (Robert), William Alfred Bonnett (Will), Matthew Read Gillies (Matt aka Dirty Elvis) and his wife Jessica, great nephews Raleigh James Gillies and Rowan Read Gillies plus countless friends who cherished her.

She was preceded in death by her parents Laura Lois Francis Gillies and William Raleigh, Aunt Mary Louise Gillies, Uncle Lewis Gillies, Aunt Eunice Ada Francis, and Blanche Francis Borders, Uncle James Francis, Aunt Margie Francis, her husband Robert Earl Bonnett (Bob), her brother Robert Lewis Gillies, and her son Robert David Bonnett (David).

Nancy’s life was full of family, faith, music, chocolate, purple, games, laughter, and love that multiplied. She will be remembered most for the way people felt safe, for her honesty, her listening ear, and her deep well of kindness. She will also be remembered for her long gray hair in her later years, following in the footsteps of her Aunt Eunice, whom she loved to very much.