Aug 12, 2011 2 min read

Nancy Jo Schmickle Thompson passed away, in the hope of the resurrection, Tuesday, August 2, 2011. She had struggled valiantly since 2009 against the effects of metastatic breast cancer.

She was born March 11, 1956, at Beal Air Force Base in Yuba City, Calif. She and her sister, Susan, were the twin daughters of Joan and Richard Schmickle.

Mrs. Thompson grew up in Iowa and California. She graduated from Whittier High School in Whittier, Calif. She attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal studies in 1978.

She and John Thompson were married November 7, 1998, in Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview, Ill.

Mrs. Thompson served as a missionary in Campus Crusade for Christ for eight years, training students in Christian leadership and ministry in the United States, Poland, Czechoslovakia and what were then the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Her career also included working with weekend college programs. From 1995 to 1997, she worked in the library at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., where she met her future husband. She also was a book editor at Multnomah Publishers in Sisters, Ore.

She and her husband moved to Waynesburg in 2001, when he began to work in the library at Waynesburg University. She home-schooled her three children, Luis, Roberto and Catherine, with great care. Her interests included reading, gardening, weaving, drawing and painting. She had attended icon painting workshops and enjoyed serving her church and community. She was a member of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Canonsburg and will be deeply missed by her many friends and family members.

Surviving are her husband, John Thompson; three children, Luis, Roberto and Catherine Thompson of Waynesburg; her father, Richard Schmickle of Libertyville, Ill.; and a sister, Susan Schmickle of Loveland, Colo.

Deceased is her mother, Joan Schmickle.

Memorial gifts may be sent in her memory to Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, 321 Monastery Lane, Ellwood City, PA 16117.