Nancy Huddleston Packer, 1925 - 2025

In an oral history interview conducted in 2014, Nancy Huddleston Packer describes her upbringing with references to her family and early years in Washington, DC. She credits her father with helping her develop an interest in politics and remembers her undergraduate and graduate education as a time of maturing into a responsible student who studied theology as an intellectual pursuit rather than a religious one. Arriving at Stanford, Packer characterizes herself as a newlywed who was somewhat adrift in the unfamiliar world of the university. She recalls her development as a writer by noting the influences that Wallace Stegner had on her career. She shares the struggles she had with procrastination, the processes involved in developing a short story, and her growing self-confidence. Packer describes her teaching career that focused on the needs of students. In developing the freshman English composition course, she speaks of creating a class for the instructors of freshman English and her role in reducing class size. She also relates the history of the Creative Writing Program and her role in its development. She notes that her efforts to be a good citizen of the university resulted in her receiving all three awards the university bestows. Packer also discusses her publications that range from books involving teaching to collections of short stories.

Interview Transcript
Interview Audio

Packer also participated in an oral history interview about the rise of Stanford University during President J.E. Wallace Sterling's presidency in 2012, as well as the following oral history interviews:
Interview with Nancy H. Packer : Faculty Senate Oral History Project
Stanford Pioneering Women : A Conversation with Women Hired Between 1958 and 1975