American Hellenic Institute

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AHI Mourns the Passing of AHI Supporter and Friend of Greece, Nancy Horton
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Georgea Polizos
March 11, 2016—No. 07 (202) 785-8430

AHI Mourns the Passing of AHI Supporter and Friend of Greece, Nancy Horton

2016nancy hortonNancy Horton on the occasion of her 100th birthday.AHI is deeply saddened to learn of the death in Athens on February 18 of long-time AHI supporter and friend of Greece, Nancy Horton, aged 103.

Nancy was the daughter of Catherine Sacopoulou and George Horton, the U.S.’s Consul-General in Athens, Thessaloniki, and Smyrna at the time of the great fire in September 1922.  Until the last possible moment, while flames engulfed Smyrna, George Horton helped beleaguered refugees find means of escape.  After the fire, his book The Blight of Asia cited first-person witnesses to lay the blame for the fire’s origins on uniformed Turkish troops, who occupied Smyrna at the denouement of the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922.

Like her father, Nancy was an author and poet, was fluent in Greek, and was an ardent lover of all things Greek.  Through her writings and activities, she kept alive her distinguished father’s memory and was much beloved by Greeks everywhere.

2016horton headstoneNancy Horton will be interred with her father and mother in Georgetown’s Oak Hill Cemetery where a public graveside memorial is planned for April 18 at 11 a.m.

The American Hellenic Institute is an independent non-profit Greek American public policy center that works to strengthen relations between the United States and Greece and Cyprus, and within the Greek American community.

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For additional information, please contact Georgea Polizos at (202) 785-8430 or at pr@ahiworld.org. For general information about the activities of AHI, please see our website at https://www.ahiworld.org and follow us on Twitter @TheAHIinDC.