Nancy Elizabeth Updike, the youngest child of Mary Esther (Allen) and Farnsworth Updike, was born in Philadelphia, PA on October 1^st, 1926.  She is predeceased by her parents and brothers Ralph, Worth, and George.  She is survived by her sister-in-law Alma McCullough, first cousin Shirley Gerhold, second cousins Marcia Monnett (Marijo Cosmas), Marilyn (Joe) Tiralla, and Pat (Darryl) McNabb, and several younger and youngest cousins.  Dozens of cousins.  Nancy was an independent person from childhood to youth to older adult.  She lived life on her own terms seldom taking “no” for an answer.  Once as a small child when her parents told her “no” she ran away and stayed in a tree all day until dark before returning home.  When the Marines told her “no” during the Korean Conflict, she joined the Red Cross and was stationed in military hospitals in Korea and Japan for 3 years.  She had a Masters degree in physical education, but she preferred to work for herself.  She began a career in dogs that started as a hobby.  She did all things dogs including running her own Melwood Kennels for breeding German Shepherds and Schipperkes, boarding, showing, grooming, and selling to the Air Force.  She bought her first panel truck and became a distributor for Hill’s Science Diet for dogs about 1968.  Before long she moved to Aquasco, where she had built a new home and kennels and began a trucking company called the Trojan Horse.  She contracted with the US Post Office for short and long mail delivery runs up and down the East Coast.  When she retired in her late 6o’s selling the company, she built a home in Tedious Creek where she attempted several new environmental projects with varying success, raising oysters, solar panels, wind turbine, and commercial greenhouse up until her 80’s.  In the most recent years she had declined and required attended-full-time care in a nursing residential facility.  Thank you to Calvert County Nursing Center first and lastly to Solomons Nursing Center.  A special thank you and remembrance to Bessie Willett who helped Nancy in so many ways.  Independent to the last, Nancy passed away on January 25^th, 2021, a life well lived.  Thank you Nancy for your example of what women can be and do, whatever they want to, there aren’t any “no” answers.