Chester W. Nimitz - Personal Life

Personal Life

Nimitz married Catherine Vance Freeman (22 March 1892 - 1 February 1979) on 9 April 1913, in Wollaston, Massachusetts. He purchased a property built in 1930 for his daughter "Nancy" in Playa del Rey, CA on Rees Street at Delgany Ave.

Nimitz and his wife had four children:

1. Catherine Vance "Kate" (b. 1914)
2. Chester William "Chet", Jr. (1915–2002)
3. Anna Elizabeth "Nancy" (1919–2003)
4. Mary Manson (1931–2006)

Catherine Vance graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1934, became a music librarian with the Washington D.C. Public Library, and married U.S. Navy Commander James Thomas Lay (1909-2001), from St. Clair, Missouri, in Chester and Catherine's suite at the Fairfax Hotel in Washington D.C. on 9 March 1945. She had met Lay in the summer of 1934 while visiting her parents in Southeast Asia.

Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1936, and he served as a submariner in the Navy until his retirement in 1957, reaching the (post-retirement) rank of Rear Admiral; he served as chairman of PerkinElmer from 1969-1980.

Anna Elizabeth ("Nancy") Nimitz was an expert on the Soviet economy at the RAND Corporation from 1952 until her retirement in the 1980s.

Sister Mary Aquinas (Nimitz) became a sister in the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), working at Dominican University of California teaching biology for 16 years, academic dean for 11 years, acting president for 1 year, and vice president for institutional research for 13 years before becoming the university's Emergency Preparedness Coordinator. She held this job until her death 27 February 2006 when she lost her battle with cancer.

Nimitz suffered a stroke, complicated by pneumonia, in late 1965. In January 1966 he left the U.S. Naval Hospital (Oak Knoll) in Oakland to return home to his naval quarters. He died on the evening of 20 February 1966, at Quarters One on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. He was buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California on 24 February 1966.