Nancy Becker, creative advocate for the deaf community; at 60

NANCY V. BECKER

There is deaf, Nancy V. Becker once wrote, and there is Deaf - the capital "D" freighted with nuance that those who hear may never grasp.

A childhood of laboring under the expectations of the hearing world changed abruptly when Ms. Becker was a teenager and went to a school where for the first time she was allowed to use sign language. Rather than being forced to lip-read and speak with a voice she could not hear, she communicated with the fluid movements of her hands.

"I made real friends at this new school, friends that I could talk with," she wrote in a chapter included in "Ordinary Moments: The Disabled Experience," which was published in 1984. "I was amazed at how easily I could be understood, at how easily I could understand. My new language changed my life. At age 16, I went from being deaf to being Deaf."

An eloquent and dynamic activist and teacher, Ms. Becker spent the rest of her life inspiring others and teaching them how to live both in the community of the deaf and the world of the hearing. She died at 60 in her Winchester home of complications from multiple sclerosis on Valentine's Day, her favorite holiday.

"She never stopped working; she was a very creative person," said Alma Bournazian, Ms. Becker's partner of 25 years. "She was always willing to work with deaf people all over. She never cut anybody out; she helped everyone."

From teaching at Northeastern University and working as the college's coordinator of educational services to serving on the boards of several organizations for the deaf, Ms. Becker seemed to be everywhere, in the words of friends who have written eight pages of tributes in the online guest book for her death announcement.

Her impact went far beyond Greater Boston. Ms. Becker acted in plays and was one of four women featured in "See What I Say," a film nominated for an Academy Award in 1982 in the Best Documentary Short Subject category.

Diagnosed in the mid-1980s with multiple sclerosis, she continued to joyfully partake in physically challenging pastimes until the illness began to limit her activities. "Nancy was the love of my life and my idol," said Pearl Blasser, a cousin in Hollywood, Fla. "This was a woman who had MS and went whitewater rafting and could [not] care less. What an incredible, incredible human being she was, not only in the deaf community, but for everyone."

Born in New York City, Ms. Becker remembered being the "fat, deaf kid with buck teeth; an easy target for the other kids to make fun of - and every chance they got, they did."

"My mother remembers when I was still able to hear," she wrote in the chapter of "Ordinary Moments," which was edited by Alan J. Brightman. "She tells me that I could say three words: 'milk,' 'cookie,' and 'apple.' Then the high fever made me deaf."

Schools where teachers told her to lip-read and learn to speak were frustrating, she wrote, and there were times home at the dinner table when conversation moved too quickly from person to person for Ms. Becker to follow everyone's lips. Such experiences led Ms. Becker to form firm opinions about sign language and spoken language.

"In my opinion, deaf kids should be taught sign language first; it's a language that will work for them," she wrote. "Only after they know sign language would it make sense to see if they can learn to speak. And if they can't, then they shouldn't be forced."

Ms. Becker considered American Sign Language her first language and English her second. She graduated from the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, Conn., from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., and received a master's in deaf education from Western Maryland College.

After moving to the Boston area, she volunteered and worked in the deaf community. She served as president of the New England Athletics Association of the Deaf, was on the board of the Massachusetts State Association of the Deaf, and was a member of the National Association of the Deaf.

A competitive softball player, Ms. Becker was a formidable presence on the field, in the classroom, or signing to followers as she gave a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts, friends wrote in guest book tributes. Tall and slender, she had an expressive face, thick, curly hair, and large glasses that emphasized eyes that never left the person with whom she was conversing in sign language.

Her parents divorced when she was young. Ms. Becker's mother, Barbara Blasser, has died and her father, James, now lives in Lake Worth, Fla. "Nancy was a very, very special person, but she was also a special sister," said her half-brother Jonathan of Stamford, Conn. "Family to her was very, very important and she took great pride in her family. I was just blessed to have Nancy as a sister."

Bournazian met Ms. Becker at a play in the 1980s and soon they became a couple, celebrating 25 years together on Dec. 24.

"She was very organized," Bournazian said. "She wore four or five hats in one day - she had so many commitments, so many different jobs."

On Feb. 14, Bournazian wore red in honor of the holiday her partner liked so much. And at the moment Ms. Becker died, there was a fluttering of wings outside. "All these birds flew by the window as soon as she died," Bournazian said. "This huge flock of birds took off and I couldn't believe it. We were crying and crying."

In addition to Bournazian, her father, and her brother Jonathan, Ms. Becker leaves two half-brothers, Arto of Woodland Hills, Calf., and Roger of Matthews, N.C.; and a half-sister, Jennifer Parker.

A service will be announced.