Nancy Sowell, nurse became music teacher
May 9, 2024
Nancy Warren Sowell of Pawleys Island died May 1.
She was born in Charlotte in 1939, the daughter of J.D. and Ruth Bennett Warren. She lived in Lancaster, Greenville and, finally, Pawleys Island to be closer to her family.
Mrs. Sowell was a dedicated registered nurse who trained at Mercy School of Nursing and Sacred Heart College in Belmont, N.C. Over her career she worked in just about every possible setting: intensive care, recovery, hospice and home health, as well as numerous practices including her last stint at her husband George’s OB-GYN office in Georgetown.
Mrs. Sowell’s lifelong passion was music. She was given piano and voice lessons as a child and spent a good part of her life returning that favor in various ways. Around the time of her retirement from nursing and her marriage to George, she returned to teaching piano and continued for 15 years.
Along the way she worked hard to become nationally certified as a teacher of music. She touched the lives of many students in the Pawleys area, not just as a teacher. She cared deeply for her students and encouraged them to succeed in small and large ways. She took them to recitals in nursing homes and led them to regional competitions as a coach and mentor.
She is survived by her husband, George A. Sowell; her sister, Emily Nelson of Pawleys Island; and her son, Rob Braswell of Portsmouth, N.H., and all their families.
She will be interred at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, where she had previously been a long time member, music director, soloist and pianist and children’s choir director.
A memorial service and celebration of life will be scheduled in July.
