Hale, Nancy

Nancy Hale, circa 1930s

Nancy Hale was born Anna Westcott Hale on May 6, 1908, in Boston, Massachusetts, the only child of painters Philip Leslie Hale and Lilian Clark Westcott. Descended from a distinguished New England family, Nancy Hale's grandfather was the orator, author, and Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett Hale, and two of her great-aunts were the writers Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lucretia Peabody Hale. Philip L. Hale achieved some success as a neo-impressionist painter of the Boston School, but probably had a greater influence as an instructor at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School and as an art critic for Boston newspapers. Lilian W. Hale, the more talented artist of the pair, was well known for her portraits and landscapes in oil, pastel, and charcoal.

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