Nancy Anne Winlund

Nancy passed away peacefully in her sleep at Sunrise at Belmont Park Assisted Living in Arlington, VA where she has lived for the last five years. She was 90 years old. Her life began in the little town of Damascus in southwest VA, a few miles from the Tennessee border. By the time she was six, she had moved to Arlington where, with two short exceptions, she would spend the rest of her life. In 1951, she graduated from Washington-Lee High School, and later that year on October 20, 1951, she married James Carl Winlund at St. Ann’s Catholic Church. After a four-year stint in the Navy, the couple settled down in Arlington to raise two sons, James Carl, Jr. and Eric Franklin. Jim, Sr. joined the Arlington County Police Force and Nancy worked as a county school crossing guard while her boys were young. One of her crossing stations was on the “big hill” on Wilson Boulevard in the Bluemont Park section of the county. Nancy lost her husband Jim to cancer in 1979. She went to work full time in Arlington County’s Social Services Department in the administration of their Rent Relief program. After her retirement some twenty years later, she had time to pursue her not-inconsiderable artistic talents. She began taking lessons in oil painting and over the years produced a wealth of paintings that family and friends can treasure and remember her by. Her other passion was traveling the U.S. to favorite places such as the Southwest, the California/Oregon Coast, the national parks and, of course, back to her mountain roots in Damascus. The year 2015 was a major turning point in Nancy’s life. In June, she sold her home of 43 years in the Williamsburg/Yorktown neighborhood and moved to an apartment in Falls Church City. In September, she lost her beloved son Eric to lung cancer. A year later, in failing health, she moved back to Arlington into assisted living at Sunrise at Bluemont Park – by coincidence, back to the “big hill” on Wilson Boulevard. Survivors include her son Jim, and his wife Barbara of Benson, Arizona; her two sisters, Valerie Olson of Vienna and Judy Patten of Falls Church; her granddaughter Jennifer Ann Uhlig and husband Bill and great grandson Michael James Uhlig of Palm Bay, Florida. Following Nancy’s wishes, a Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Agnes Catholic Church, 1910 North Randolph Street in Arlington on Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 11:00 a.m., followed by burial with her husband and son at Columbia Gardens Cemetery, 3411 Arlington Blvd in Arlington, at 1:00 p.m.