Former Brave wraps up a stellar medical career

Nancy Llewellyn may not have known it at the time, but her years at La Conner High School in the late 1960s and early 1970s were a prescription for future success.

A positive prognosis was quite apparent even then to fellow students and faculty members alike, all of whom admired her keen academic skills, especially gifts for solving tough math problems and writing bold pieces for the campus newspaper.

The 1972 La Conner grad would go on to medical school at the University of Washington and a subsequent career in internal medicine.

She officially retired Sept. 1, having most recently devoted her practice to the care of patients in skilled nursing facilities after hospitalization.

"It's been an amazing career," she told the Weekly News, noting that the first step on a half-century long professional journey began during her school days.

"They gave us a test when I was at La Conner, it was kind of a personality test, that helped match you to certain professions," she recalled, sharing her trademark infectious laugh. "Mine came up with nursing, which I didn't know anything about."

She proved to be a quick study.

As a student, the doctor admits that her attendance wasn't always the best. Her grades told a different story.

Math topped the list of classes she wouldn't miss. That she credits to the teacher, Steve Crawford, now retired and living in Mount Vernon, and widely regarded as one of the best to ever manage a La Conner classroom.

"Mr. Crawford, he was my hero," Llewellyn said. "Mr. Crawford and his math class was a highlight of my time at La Conner High School."

Another highlight was working on the student newspaper, the La Conner High School Echoes. That provided an outlet for her teenaged rebellion.

She wrote one column critical of the district's policy of suspending students for skipping school. It didn't make sense to her that the school would send students home as punishment for ditching class.

Another article poked fun at a school dress code requiring girls to wear dresses. She suggested that wearing pants rather than miniskirts would be preferable for girls as they climbed stairs to the second floor of the old high school.

Llewellyn and her older sister, Marge, arrived in La Conner from Mobile, Ala., in 1968 when their father, Dick Hoover, who became a leader in the La Conner Rotary Club, took a job in Anacortes.

The sisters had attended a private parochial school, a much different world than the one they entered at La Conner. Some in the south clung to racial segregation in the 1960s.

"Marge and I were down there when they were integrating," Llewellyn said. "There was one time when a woman whisked me away from a water fountain. Back then, they had separate water fountains (for Blacks)."

New to La Conner, the Hoover girls practiced together to rid themselves of their southern accents.

"I was a ninth grader trying to fit in," Llewellyn said.

Following graduation, she adhered to the results of the high school career aptitude test and studied nursing at Western Washington University. Eventually she transferred to the UW, graduating in 1976.

While nursing at United General Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, a doctor impressed with her talent suggested she attend medical school. So did another.

But she and her husband, George Llewellyn, a local commercial fisherman and firefighter, were at the time raising their young children.

"I thought, 'How can I go?'" she said.

Fortunately, a friend provided a loan for her to enroll at UW medical school. She and George divided parental roles to make it happen.

"George had the kids during the day," she said, "and I took over in the evening."

She joined a four-member carpool to Seattle, paying the other three students to take her turn driving while she studied in the car.

While she was in medical school, George Llewellyn used his versatile skill set to maintain the family's cash flow and, as Llewellyn put it, "to keep our vehicles going."

The family moved to Spokane for her three-year residency, returning home for her to practice internal medicine with Fidalgo Medical Associates in Anacortes. They rented a home in Shelter Bay so the children could attend La Conner schools.

After 10 years with Fidalgo Medical, she opened her own practice, also in Anacortes. In time, she purchased La Conner Medical Center in her hometown. She and her team rotated between their Anacortes office and La Conner.

After selling the La Conner clinic, Llewellyn focused on work as a hospitalist. That evolved into filling a growing call for doctors to care for those in long-term nursing facilities.

"It served a huge need," she said. "It was all so new."

Llewellyn said she had planned to retire at age 66, but that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. She soldiered on, caring for COVID-19 patients.

"It was a tough time," she said.

Coincidentally, her older son, Nick Llewellyn, a 1998 La Conner graduate, was conducting post-doctoral research into COVID-19 at the University of Southern California.

"Nick did a ton of work with COVID," she said.

Only now, four years after the pandemic's outbreak, has Llewellyn found retirement appealing.

"It's time to do something else," she said. "I've been doing something that's common for doctors, which is painting. I've been doing that a lot lately, working the other side of the brain."

Coming full circle, she will mark her retirement by drawing upon that dormant state of rebellion that occasionally marked her student days.

"I plan to take my old pagers and dump them in a glass of wine," she said with a laugh.