With deep sadness, we mark the third memorial ceremony of great and honorary “Grandmother of Afghanistan” Nancy Hatch Dupree
Nancy arrived in Kabul on 1962 as a cheerful young wife of an American diplomat. She devoted more than half a century of her prolific life for preserving the cultural heritage by collecting and archiving Afghanistan’s historical documents.
She loved to describe herself as an ancient monument of Afghanistan, and never suffered fools gladly. Even in her last hours, as she struggled to fight the illness that eventually took her life, her concern was the slides she needed to finish and exhibit. Departing this world, she leaves behind a rich legacy of service and dedication to the two great loves of her life: her second husband Louis, and her adopted home Afghanistan.
In the years of turmoil, and as the world interest in Afghanistan waned, Nancy’s adoration for the people of Afghanistan persevered, manifesting itself in the greatest preservation of documents about the country’s modern history. She collected and cataloged with care side by side with the other colleagues from Afghanistan. Today, the magnificent Afghanistan Center at Kabul University (ACKU) stands as a testimonial to her love for Afghanistan and her commitment to her craft as a historian. In what she has gifted the people
from Afghanistan, she remains an icon of all that is good between Afghanistan and the United States.
Nancy lived a rich life of friendships with presidents, diplomats, humanitarians, parliamentarians and importantly a people she worked tirelessly to understand and help the world understand. At ACKU, Nancy and her colleagues have deftly assembled a history much in need of understanding. Nancy’s work will live on, and her story will undoubtedly inspire generations. In every stone of the ACKU, all the documents so diligently cared for by Nancy, and in the hearts of many people from Afghanistan and friends of Afghanistan that her story has touched, her memory lives on with great admiration, warmth and gratitude.
