Nancy Alice Grace-Ulibarri

Nancy Alice Ulibarri, 78, Blue Springs, Missouri, died peacefully at her home April 28, 2018. Nancy was born November 11, 1939, in Boulder, Colorado, to Clifford and Vivian (Hardy) Grace. She lived briefly in a one-room cabin built by her father in Eldora, Colorado, before moving with her parents to Wichita, Kansas, during World War II and subsequently to Worth County, Missouri, where both her parents had been reared and where she grew up happily on a farm southeast of Grant City, Missouri.
Nancy attended public school in Grant City where she was a talented member of the Grant City band program and an award-winning percussionist and timpanist. She graduated from Grant City High School in 1958; obtained her RN degree from Methodist Hospital School of Nursing, St. Joseph, in 1961; and a BS in Nursing from Webster University, Webster Groves, in 1993.
Nancy married Frank Ulibarri, also of Blue Springs, in 1995, having moved to the town in 1988. She was a loving and devoted mother to her two daughters, Kellie Thrasher Bryson and Lori Thrasher Brown, both of whom were born in Albany, Missouri, during which time Nancy also served as a school nurse and a hospital and private practice nurse. Nancy went on to work as a nurse in hospitals in Sweet Springs, Missouri, where she also served as director of nursing, and Blue Springs before retiring in 2004.
Nancy loved being a homemaker and was an exceptional cook and baker, excelled at all types of sewing and needlework including quilting, enjoyed gardening and yard work and discovered a love of painting following retirement. She loved reading, hiking with her husband and other family members and vacationing in her first home, the tiny one-room Rocky Mountain cabin her father built in 1939, and traveling and taking cruises with Frank.
Nancy was preceded in death by her parents and their first daughter Betty LaViv. She is survived by her husband Frank; the father of her daughters David Thrasher, Higginsville, Missouri; her daughter Kellie, son-in-law Randy, grandson Corey and granddaughter Heather Bryson, Sedalia, Missouri; daughter Lori and son-in-law Jeff Brown, West Plains, Missouri, and grandson Logan Patterson, Columbia, Missouri; sister Teddee Grace, Boulder, Colorado; and brother C.P. (Patrick) and sister-in-law Vera Jo and nieces Billie and Molly Grace and families, all of Tacoma, Washington.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent in Nancy’s name to any of the following: ALS Foundation for Life; ALS Therapy Development Institute: ALS Research Organization; The ALS Association; Target ALS; or Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care.