Former Cookeville Pregnancy Clinic Director Nancy Knowlton will leave a legacy of positivity and service.
Knowlton passed away Sunday. Assistant Director Lisa Reeves said Knowlton was not afraid to share hard truths, but did so with a deep sense of compassion and mercy. Reeves said Knowlton had a direct role in such major decisions in people’s lives.
“We have some people walk in the clinic and will say, ‘She changed my life. My daughter is here, my granddaughter is here, my grandson is here because of her,'” Reeves said. “It’s real lives of real people that are walking around this community that they credit God using Nancy in their life.”
Reeves said Knowlton also served as a champion for many other local non-profits. Reeves said Knowlton wanted to support other organizations and did so without any sort of competition or jealousy between groups.
“She wanted everybody to come to the table and be on the same team in a way that truly is inspiring,” Reeves said. “Especially when you talk about organizations that need donors and things like that.”
Reeves said one of the things that really stood out to people about Knowlton was the former director’s ability to meet them where they were. Reeves said Knowlton led with humility and joy that could be felt by those around her.
“We’ve seen her do things here at the clinic like take her own shoes off of her feet and give them to somebody who needed them,” Reeves said. “We saw her go out to her car and take her own car seat for her grandchildren out and give it to somebody who needed one. And that’s just a small example of the kinds of things she might do. You never knew what she was going to do because she was so full of life.”
Reeves said Knowlton first began volunteering with the clinic when it opened in 1988. Reeves said Knowlton served as the clinic’s director from 1995 to 2022.
“We are a Christian organization and what the Bible talks about is she’s somebody who’d been forgiven much, and so she loved much,” Reeves said. “And she walked that out with such authenticity. Almost everybody that talks about her would just talk about how, that she would accept them with no judgement.”
