Nancy Kirk, Model On 1940s Ocean City Billboard, Passes Away

The history of Ocean City is incomplete without Nancy Morris Kirk. If you were around in the 1940s, she was the first person you saw when you entered city borders.

Kirk, 92, died March 4 of respiratory failure at Abington Hospital-Jefferson Health in Pennsylvania. She spent every summer in Ocean City as a teenager.

Representatives from the Ocean City Tourism Office approached her on the beach in the 1940s. They asked Kirk if they could take a picture of her in some fishing gear to promote Ocean City.

Kirk wore a straw hat, long pants and a sleeveless top as she held a fishing rod by the shore. The image was the linchpin of the tourism office's promotional campaign in the 1940s.

The city put her photo on the billboard that welcomed vacationers as they crossed the bridge from Somers Point to Ocean City. It appeared in a tourism brochure and on postcards, according to family.

She met her husband, Earl Bruce Kirk, at Bay Shores in Somers Point in the summer of 1945. It was love at first sight. When Earl first held Nancy's hand, she didn't want to let go.

Earl had just returned from World War II as a first lieutenant and a highly decorated U.S. Army Air Corps B-25 bomber. He flew more than 50 combat missions in Europe, China, Burma and India.

Then Earl volunteered for air-sea rescue, flying PBY seaplanes on detached service with the Navy. Following combat service, Earl was a flight instructor and administered air-sea rescue training. He obtained a commercial license to pilot single- and multi-engine land and seaplanes.

Nancy's aunt and uncle, Freddie and Paul Costello, also spent summers in Ocean City. Paul rowed with his cousin, Jack Kelly.

Nancy and her three sisters were friends with the Kelly children, which included actress and future Princess of Monaco, Grace. Nancy introduced Earl to her friends at the beach in Ocean City. Freddie told family that Grace Kelly thought Earl was "dreamy."

But Earl loved Nancy, and they married months later on Nov. 3, 1945. They moved to the Boston area. Nancy was a successful model there, while Earl graduated from Harvard University in 1948, with honors, cum laude, in only 2 years and 3 months.

They later moved to Philadelphia, where Nancy was longtime president of the Philadelphia Model's Guild. As parents, they took their children each summer to Ocean City. They stayed at the Sting Ray, the Port-O-Call and the Flanders Hotel.

Earl died in 2001. Nancy is survived by daughters Barbara Ann Kirk, Diane Teresa Kirk, and Mary Ann Walters; a son, Earl Bruce Kirk Jr.; six grandchildren; and two sisters.

She spoke with The Ambler Gazette, a Pennsylvania newspaper, in 1963 about the challenges of modeling.

“Although most people assume that a model must be beautiful, it isn’t really so,” Nancy told the Gazette. “Above all, a model must have a certain quality that can be captured in a picture.”

And Nancy Morris Kirk had that quality to be the picture of Ocean City.