Nancy Machler Swift

Nancy Machler Swift

Nancy Machler Swift, 88, a retired private school admissions officer, died of Alzheimer’s Disease July 27, 2026, in San Diego.

Nancy and her husband, Ted, moved to San Diego from Maryland five years ago to be closer to their family. She spent 30 years as a staff member at three top private schools in the DC area retiring in 2008 after 19 years as an Assistant Director of Admissions at The Sidwell Friends School in Washington.

Sidwell is a highly-regarded Quaker institution which has been attended by the children and grandchildren of former presidents. It is highly competitive and while the tuition is high the school is known for its strong outreach to the community providing financial aid for disadvantaged families.

Nancy was born in West Chester, PA, daughter of a Quaker school teacher, Harriett Haines, and a physicist, Raymond Machler, Sr, PhD who went on to become director of Research and Development at Leeds & Northrup, a Philadelphia technology company which later moved to Lansdale, PA, was acquired by General Signal and sold to Honeywell.

At Sidwell Nancy, with her strong Quaker background, became a “go to” resource on Quaker questions for staff and faculty, many of whom were not Quakers. She was unpretentious, just as comfortable working with wealthy and powerful parents and their children, as with teachers and staff down to kitchen, building and grounds workers, and cleaning crew. Upon her retirement a colleague prepared the following tribute at: https://www.sidwell.edu/retired-former-employees/tributes/~board/news-tributes/post/a-tribute-to-nancy-swift The final sentence reads “Most of all, we will miss the daily presence of the warm, considerate, even-tempered, engaging and uniquely wonderful individual that she was.” That sort of says it.

Nancy grew up in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood and, with her brother, Raymond, attended Germantown Friends School, also a renowned Quaker institution. She graduated in 1956 and went on to Bennington College in Bennington, VT. She went with the intention of majoring in modern dance but after a couple of years switched to study of history and government. She was chairman of the student government during her senior year 1959-60.

After graduating from Bennington, she moved to Washington DC where she did some post graduate studies at George Washington University and took a job with the National Parks Association, writing for National Parks magazine and testifying before Congress on national parks matters.She and her husband, Ted, then a newspaper reporter, met and married in 1963.

Besides her brother, Raymond C Machler, Jr, of Warminster, PA, she leaves her husband, Ted, and daughters Elizabeth Wagner and Karen Swift both of San Diego. Also four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements will be private. Eventually she will be buried at the Machler gravesite in West Chester’s Oaklands Cemetery.