Nancy H. Johnston, homemaker-volunteer

Nancy H. Johnston, a homemaker and volunteer who enjoyed summering on Long Island Sound, died Nov. 28 at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson of complications from multiple myeloma. She was 85.

The daughter of Allen M. Heflin, a commercial real estate developer, and Louise Heflin, a homemaker, Nancy Lee Heflin was born and raised in Bristol, Conn.

She was a graduate of the Northfield School for Girls in Northfield, Mass., which merged in 1972 with another school and is now known as Northfield Mount Hermon School.

After graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1952, she moved to Manhattan and went to work at a Madison Avenue advertising agency. She later returned to Connecticut and in 1957 married Robert M. Johnston.

The couple moved to Homeland in 1975 when he was named director of marketing for the Stieff Co. In 1981 he was appointed director of the Sterling Silversmiths Guild of America. He established R.M. Johnston and Associates, a consulting firm to the silver industry.

He died in 2007.

A Blakehurst resident since 2014, Mrs. Johnston was a longtime docent at the Johns Hopkins Homewood Museum. She also supported the work of the National Wildlife Federation.

Additionally, she was a sustaining member of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art and the Yale Club of New York. Mrs. Johnston also studied art history at Notre Dame of Maryland University.

She traveled around the world on Cunard Lines' Queen Elizabeth II, and spent summers in Madison, Conn., on Long Island Sound.

"She also never met a museum that she couldn't get lost in," a son, Christopher H. "Whit" Johnston of New York, wrote in an email.

He also said that "[art] installations of Christo, songs of Willie Nelson, Broadway plays, sliced apples and a serving of six almonds — never more, never less — were just a few of life's pleasures she returned to time and again."

Private services will be held in Connecticut.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Johnston is survived by another son, Peter M. Johnston of Somerville, Mass.; a brother, Jack Heflin of Madison, Conn.; and a grandson.

— Frederick N. Rasmussen