Nancy Carol Kaplan Muir passed away peacefully on Monday, October 13, 2025, at the age of 73 in her home surrounded by her family. 

She was born in San Francisco in 1952 to Myron “Kap” and Janet Kaplan and joined her older sister, Linda, to complete the family. Kap was a charismatic salesman and exercise enthusiast, and Janet was a homemaker and self-published cookbook author with a bachelor’s degree in home economics.Nancy Muir carries a shovel to dig up a tree on her wedding day in 1977. (Photo provided by family)

Early in Nancy’s life, the family moved to Marin County, and she grew up in a newly built subdivision of mostly Jewish and Catholic families in Larkspur, CA. Kap and Janet were founding members of Temple Rodef Sholom, and while the family wasn’t particularly religious, Nancy’s cultural Judaism was a strong force in her personality throughout her life. 

In 1970, she moved to Corvallis to attend Oregon State University and graduated from OSU in 1974 with a degree in recreation resource management after completing a summer internship at Cape Perpetua. She was a true Oregonian at that point and only reluctantly traveled back to California to visit her family.

One of the highlights of her time at OSU was a cycling class led by local biking enthusiast Midge Cramer. In the summer between her sophomore and junior year of college, she signed up for a guided bicycle trip that rode over 3,000 miles from New York to San Francisco. Most of her stories about the trip focused on physical suffering, flat tires, and bickering among participants, but she persevered all the way to the Bay Bridge. The highlights included crossing Pike’s Peak, swimming in the Great Salt Lake, camping out in a park bathroom during a particularly bad storm, and having a blow-out party at her parents’ house at the end of the ride. She did the whole excursion in cut-off jean shorts, leather sandals, and no bike helmet. Her love of cycling continued the rest of her life, including several multi-day trips, daily rides with her grandchild through the darkest months of Covid, and a quick loop around OSU just a few months before she died. 

After college, she had a short-lived career in reforestation, planting trees across Oregon. She was one of very few women in the industry at the time, and like in many difficult endeavors throughout her life, she complained endlessly — she was never a believer in suffering in silence — but she carried her 30-pound bag of trees up the steepest hills through the coldest, drenching Oregon rains, keeping up with the rest of the crew. 

Through tree planting, she met Cameron Muir. In 1977, the couple was married in their home garden in an informal ceremony followed by a reception with all their back-to-the-land hippie friends, much to the chagrin of her mother who would have preferred a more conventional event. A surprise summer rainstorm drove guests to take shelter in the chicken coop, and the cake was cut and eaten with everyone crowded around a small kitchen table. She notoriously dug up a tree in her wedding dress to send home with one of the guests. 

Nancy and her handy father, Kap, converted an unfinished master bedroom into a bakery in her home. She started her business, Nancy’s Homemade Cookies, selling legendary oatmeal chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies wholesale to local coffee shops. In 1979, the couple’s first child, Ben, was born, and their daughter, Camille, was born in 1983.

In the summer of 1983, Nancy and Cameron had a surplus of apples, so they decided to try selling them at the Albany Farmers’ Market. At that first market, Nancy also brought along a few loaves of homemade bread, starting a 41-year run of her presence at area farmers’ markets. In the late ’80s and ’90s when good bread was exceedingly hard to come by in the region, Nancy baked over 100 loaves (potato, multigrain, cinnamon, and occasionally rye) per week as well as cinnamon rolls, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, brownies, raspberry bars, and other baked goods. She and Cameron also spent more and more time working in their oversized home garden and increased their vegetable offerings at the market as well. Nancy added the Corvallis Wednesday Farmers’ Market (at the fairgrounds) to her weekly routine, and then eventually, she switched from Albany to the Corvallis Saturday Farmers’ Market. She was there every Saturday (except 2020) until her retirement due to illness at the end of 2024.

Nancy Muir with goat kids. (Photo provided by family)

Nancy rebranded her vegetable and baked goods business as Oven & Earth in the mid ’90s, and she developed an incredibly loyal customer base. Not everyone knew her name, but she was The Bread Lady, The Potato Lady, The Cookie Lady, The Garlic Lady, The Celery Lady, etc., to so many. She was known for having the freshest and most beautiful produce, reverse bargaining (insisting on giving cut-rate deals), being the loudest voice at the market, and complaining about other vendors’ high prices. Many, many customers chose to shop with her weekly in large part because they enjoyed the banter and getting yelled at. Her deep, genuine curiosity in people’s real lives bordered on interrogation. She was incredibly generous and kind, but her stubborn, brutally honest, and highly opinionated spirit was only legible to some, and she refused or at least attempted to refuse any and all offers of reciprocal generosity or support. In all her years of sales, she never bought into “The customer is always right,” and that led to a few spats where she gave potential customers a piece of her mind after they were rude. She was 100% uniquely herself without compromise every minute of every day. 

Starting in 1982, Nancy and Cameron began lap swimming three days a week in the evenings at Clemens Community Pool in Philomath. She became famous for her loyal attendance, consistent and distinctive stroke and pace, and for always complaining about the water being too cold. Nancy and Cameron supported the pool through several rounds of fundraising for infrastructure improvements and were integrated into the Philomath swimming pool community. 

In the off-season from the farmers’ market, she was a dedicated volunteer in Lindy Burgess’s classroom at Philomath Elementary School for many years. When Lindy retired, Nancy struggled to find a new volunteer opportunity that she enjoyed. Eventually, she discovered being a driver for Dial-A-Bus of Benton County, and for over a decade, she had weekly four-hour shifts transporting elderly and disabled residents to appointments and outings. She had a fantastic sense of direction and knew every doctor’s office and hair salon in town and the quickest route between each place. She loved to hear about and commiserate with all kinds of people about their health problems, so she excelled at this type of volunteer work. 

At 40 years old, Nancy tried out a summer learn-to-row session put on by a newly formed Corvallis Rowing Club, a masters crew team. She decided to join and attended practices two days a week for the next 20 years. She loved being on the water, but was convinced she was the least coordinated of her teammates. She tried racing a few times but decided she enjoyed just doing the workouts more.

In 2007, her first grandchild was born, and Nancy threw herself into being an outstanding Nana. All of her five grandchildren have strong memories of playing and free foraging in her sprawling and well-manicured garden and baking with her. She schlepped her two eldest (local) grandchildren to school and swimming lessons for years, and she provided regular, essential childcare for her grandchildren in Eugene. The family home became a hub for gatherings and long, leisurely hangouts in the most beautiful setting along Woods Creek. Nancy herself was often seen running the weed eater and planting or harvesting vegetables in her filthy farm clothes. She worked so hard but was never one to worry about keeping up appearances. Every year, she took great pride in her 100-foot-long bed of annual flowers, always including zinnias, snapdragons, and marigolds.

Nancy was a nervous flier and didn’t really enjoy being away from home, but after a trip to Costa Rica in 2004, she fell in love with the Osa Peninsula and returned yearly with Cameron to hike, observe wildlife, including her favorite scarlet macaws, and enjoy the warm weather during dark Oregon winters. 

She is survived by her husband of 48 years, Cameron Muir; her sister, Linda Mostovoy (Bob Mostovoy); her son, Ben Muir (Shannon Harty); her daughter, Camille Kaplan; her five grandchildren, Levi, Charlotte, Beatrix, August, and Linnaea; and her beloved Senegalese parrot, Baby.  

Donations in memory of Nancy Muir can be made to Dial-A-Bus of Benton County and/or you are encouraged to become a paid subscriber of Philomath News.