Nan Hurley Downing

Nan Hurley Downing passed away on October 11, 2026, at Regency Retirement Village in Jackson, TN. A graveside service will be held on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, at 10:30 AM at the Tabernacle Cemetery, 3000 Tabernacle Road, Brownsville, TN with Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon officiating. The burial will follow at Tabernacle Cemetery.

Nan was born with her twin sister Sue on July 2, 1948. She graduated from Haywood High School and attended Mississippi College for Women.

On February 18, 1977, she married Richard W. Downing. She worked at Union Planters Bank and served as the “Annie Girl” for the town’s first ATM. She also worked at the Welfare Office for a time, but her true love was designing and arranging flowers. She worked at the Brownsville Flower Shop and Flowers Galore and More, where she enjoyed helping with weddings and holidays.

Nan was instrumental in creating and establishing the Haywood County Museum located at College Hill. She was especially proud of her work with the Abraham Lincoln Collection donated by Morton Felsenthal.

Nan loved attending Tabernacle Methodist Church and the annual Tabernacle Campmeeting. She enjoyed gardening, cooking gourmet meals for her husband Rick, and spending time with her granddaughter Anna Claire and the many black labs she had through the years, Big Boy, Beau, Buddy, Buster, and Boone.

Nan was preceded in death by her parents, L.Z. and MyraJo Hurley; her husband, Richard Downing; her nephew, Bradford Dayton Mann, Jr., and her sister, Sue Hurley Keathley. She is survived by her daughter, Suzanna Martinez, her daughter, Amy Martinez Thweatt (Donnie); her granddaughter, Anna Claire Thweatt; one sister, Linda Mann (Bradford) and one brother-in-law, Jimmy Keathley.

We would like to thank her caregivers at Regency Retirement Village and Gentiva Hospice Care, as well as her dear friend, Marilyn Taylor.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Tabernacle Methodist Church, Betsy Thornton, 57 Old Highway 19, Brownsville, TN, 38012. All arrangements and services are under the direction of the Lea & Simmons Funeral Home in Brownsville, TN.