Nancy Howser Gets On With Life 2 Years Later

It’s been almost two years since Dick Howser died. Two years since Nancy Howser, the quintessential woman-behind-the-man, was thrust into the unwelcome role of a public figure.

Today, the tears have mostly passed. She smiles and talks of a future too full of promise to leave room for self-pity.

It was hard then, when her husband Dick’s celebrity as the manager of the Kansas City Royals denied her even the privacy of grief. And after his death, the shy, private woman was called to the public forefront.

That public side of life hasn’t gotten any easier for a woman who still must deal with stage fright before standing up in front of a crowd. She’s willing to share herself, but she wants to go back to what she’s most comfortable with--working closely with individuals, out of the spotlight.

Before, as far as the public was concerned, she simply was the wife of the successful manager of a championship baseball team in a baseball-crazy town.

“I loved it for Dick,” she said of the attention that the 1985 World Series victory brought. “I was proud for him, but I could stay in the background. I was just more of a homebody, I guess.”

In July 1986, doctors discovered the brain tumor that would end Dick Howser’s life.

“I never felt comfortable being in the public eye,” she said. “When (Dick) became ill, I was exposed and I had to learn to deal with it in a hurry. And it terrified me.

“I look back now at the appearances I had to make, and I don’t know how I got through it.”

Much of her time is spent working on behalf of others in the two communities where she maintains homes: Kansas City and Tallahassee, Fla., her birthplace.

She spends time counseling brain tumor patients and their families as a member of a volunteer group at St. Luke’s Hospital, where her husband was treated.

In counseling, Howser “accepts people just where they are and guides them gently,” said Sara Hammes, a group member. “She’s not a hands-on type; she’s very rational. She doesn’t look at someone with that kind of piteous look. She meets them on the level of, ‘You’ve been dealt a tough deck of cards, but you look like somebody who can deal with it.’ ”

She participates in several fund raisers and projects in Florida and Kansas City, such as the Dick Howser Center for Cerebral Palsy, a school for children with cerebral palsy and 20 other brain-related disorders.

Howser maintains many ties to her life with her husband. She still has the same season tickets, four rows behind home plate, that she had when he managed the Royals, and keeps in contact with team officials.

Overall, her life is beginning to take on new directions. “I am starting to do some things for myself. I’ve been taking a few trips; some girlfriends in Tallahassee talked me into going on a cruise.

“I’m starting to socialize. I’m striving for a little more balance in my life.”