Member Profile: Nancy and Geoff - A J-Date Success And A Life In Two Communities
A profile by Annie Hoyer
Nancy and Geoffrey Fages host an annual Sukkot gathering in the sukkah they erect at their Bethlehem home. Nancy insists on doing all the cooking and hosting all the BHC members. This couple’s generous gesture seems to radiate from the happiness they have found in their six-year union.
In fact, Nancy proclaims, “We are a J-date success story.” When she signed up at the site, she had been divorced from her second husband for six years and had one child, Jessica, from a brief youthful marriage. Geoffrey, who has two sons and a daughter, had recently divorced. Geoffrey looked at 3,000 profiles of potential dates; Nancy’s was the only one that impressed him. When he messaged her, she was flattered by how carefully he had read her profile. In fact, she was so flattered, she became skeptical. She wrote to him, “You are either married or a troll. Which is it?”
He shot back, “I am not married. And you decide if I am a troll.”
Thus challenged, Nancy looked him up on LinkedIn. She discovered he was an accomplished person. But she still was not completely convinced, for she had not seen his photo. He sent her a picture of him with his children praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. That did the trick!
Fages sukkah
Though Nancy grew up in the Bronx and Geoffrey in Canada, they were both living in Florida at the time. They hit it off immediately. After a whirlwind courtship, Geoffrey proposed in Maui, and the couple married four months later. “I was blessed with a second chance at life,” Geoffrey said of his marriage to Nancy. For Nancy’s part, they weathered the pandemic because “we love to hang out together.”
Although Geoffrey comes from a traditional conservative Jewish family that kept kosher, Nancy grew up in a home where “I knew I was Jewish, but that was about it.” Her second husband was observant and during their marriage her knowledge of Judaism grew. But her real entrée into Judaism began before that, while raising Jessica as a single parent. She had put her daughter in a Jewish day school. The rabbi there gradually guided her to a more religious life. He first taught her the kosher labels on food so she could send appropriate snacks. In a later move, he suggested her daughter would make more friends if Nancy became kosher, so girls from the school could visit Jessica.
Then, he asked her if she would spend Shabbos with the family of one of Jessica’s classmates. It would be a mitzvah, he assured her, since the parents and their daughter were not so popular. Feeling needed, Nancy ignored her exhaustion from work and went to the Shabbos meal. When she arrived, she found a table was set for twenty guests; obviously, this family did not need her support. Rather, the rabbi’s subterfuge was his way of pushing her towards a supportive Jewish community, one that helped Nancy make her way as a single mom.
Nancy’s work has taken her in many different directions. Early on, she sold handmade baby clothes and worked for an alarm company. She is a certified kitchen designer and has renovated and sold homes. She was the principle of a copper refinery in Austria. She managed this company successfully until it went out of business during the pandemic due to supply and logistic problems.
Geoffrey has both an undergraduate and a graduate business degree. He is a CA, CPA, CFP and a TEP. His expertise is in tax and estate planning. He worked in Ontario until 2008, when he moved to Minnesota to become the President and CEO of Waycrosse, the family office for the Cargill and MacMillan family. He has now retired.
They both keep active managing a foundation started by Geoffrey’s parents which helps support numerous Jewish charities. They love to spend time with their four children. Currently, they are playing a board game, Carcassonne, and have an ongoing tournament to see who can reach 10,000 wins. They enjoy dining out.The couple divide their time between Florida and Bethlehem. In Florida, they belong to two synagogues, one in walking distance where they attend Saturday services, and one they attend for holidays because of its dynamic rabbi. In Bethlehem, they live in a house Nancy has owned for years. The 1820 home was a “ramshackle cottage” when she took ownership, but Nancy said, “There is no surface in the house that I have not touched.”
“We belong to two real communities,” Nancy concluded. “We have two homes we really love, friends who we love in both places, with our family in Florida. I would not change anything.”
profile by Annie Hoyer, as part of an occasional series
Nancy and Geoff - patio party hosts