Nina Vickers, 65; harpist plucked shoppers' heart strings
The celestial sounds of Nina L. Vickers's pedal harp filled the deli aisles of Crosby's Markets every week for more than a decade. She wore gowns she made from Hong Kong silk and plucked songs ranging from Disney themes to "Danny Boy."
"Men buy flowers and champagne when they hear the harp; women buy smoked salmon," she told the Globe in 2003 at the Marblehead store.
A former New Jersey trial lawyer, Mrs. Vickers died of cancer Thursday at her Salem home. She was 65.
She began playing the harp after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy in her 30s. She also became a competition figure skater, windsurfer, motorcyclist, and a Coast Guard-certified sailboat captain.
"She told me she just said phooey on all this, 'I'm going to live my life like tomorrow's my last day,' " recalled her friend Juli Lederhaus, general manager at Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, where Mrs. Vickers also performed.
Her cancer returned about six years ago, according to her husband, Russ.
"She didn't let it slow her down," he said. "She said you can't let it stop you from living your life."
As a cancer survivor, Mrs. Vickers spoke to support groups, sometimes stripping down to her bra to show the results of reconstructive surgery.
"She began a lifelong quest to tell people this isn't the end of the world," her husband said. "You can recover your figure, your self-esteem, and live a normal life."
The couple met as freshmen at the University of Wisconsin and were married for 41 years.
"She was independent and strong-willed," Russ said. "She was a women's libber before there were women's libbers. She was so determined in everything she did."
Mrs. Vickers also possessed an "unassuming childlike quality," he said. She gave names to her 10 harps - Regina, Kristalina, Ninotchka, Josephine, Eileen Malone, Rosemary, Yasuko, Maria, Ninita, and Bambino. She named her ficus tree Rufus and rescued flowers from the Hawthorne Hotel's window boxes.
She believed in a nondenominational God and prayed for a sign of her recovery, her husband said. A seagull began visiting their bedroom balcony. She named him Tupper, fed him cat food each morning, and told Russ, "I'll have to take a seagull instead of a dove."
Mrs. Vickers was born in Rochester, N.Y., to surgeon Louis and Edith (Harmon) Lapi. She studied the violin in high school and spent a year studying Italian in Rome.
She loved traveling throughout her life and became fluent in Mandarin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and French, her husband said.
She earned her bachelor's degree in geography in three years followed by her law degree in 1966, also from the University of Wisconsin. She became a lawyer for the Veterans Administration in New Jersey and later opened a private practice.
In the 1980s, Mrs. Vickers sold real estate when her husband became an executive for a New York engineering firm. She also operated their charter boat business and captained a 45-foot sailboat for tours off Long Island.
They decided to try a new venture in the 1990s and started shopping for a marina. They bought Hawthorne Cove Marina in Salem in 1993. During the summer at the marina, Mrs. Vickers played her harp on Sunday mornings.
The grocery chain's vice president, Jim Crosby, hired Mrs. Vickers after she played at two of his children's weddings.
She played for weddings, parties, and brunch at the Hawthorne Hotel, wearing gowns or elaborate costumes she made.
She dressed as a lobster, a mermaid, a seahorse, and Queen Anne. In the weeks before her death, Mrs. Vickers was sewing a penguin costume in hope of wearing it while performing for the New England Boat Show.
"She always approached everything with this dynamic enthusiasm which is unstoppable," Lederhaus said.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Vickers leaves two brothers, Louis Lapi of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Tony Lapi of Sanibel Island, Fla.; and a sister, Maria Drumm of Baltimore.
A gathering of relatives and friends will be held at 4 p.m. today at the Hawthorne Hotel. Burial will be private. 