We celebrate the life of Nona Taylor Browne, a beloved Albuquerque resident born July 26, 1926. Nona was known for her humor, hospitality, and love for history, libraries, travel, her church and for her friends and family.

Born in Pocatello, Idaho, she was raised to be an Idaho girl, but instead politely disagreed with her dad and saved for two years after her high school graduation to pay her own way to attend college at Utah State University. There she met the great love of her life, John, a Marine from Arkansas returned from WW2 also studying at Utah State.

Nona married John in May 1948, when they decided to be “missionaries” at a then mission school, Wasatch Academy, in the mountains of Utah. A call to the ministry led them to San Francisco Theological Seminary, then Aberdeen, Idaho, then back to Wasatch Academy, to Salt Lake City, and finally to Socorro, NM. In New Mexico they found their home.

Along with raising three children, Nona helped raise many kids in Socorro and Farmington by being “Mrs. Browne, the librarian”. After the death of her husband in 1981 and her retirement in 1985, she moved to Albuquerque and volunteered to help at Menaul School’s Historical Library of the Southwest, where she soon became the library’s volunteer director, a job she continued well into her 90s.

Nona’s life was never about herself. It was about loving people well.

Leaving us on January 22, 2026, she is survived by one of her five siblings, two of her three children, five grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren and six great-greats. Each is thankful for any little bit of her we have in us.

A celebration of life will be held for Nona at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Nona asked that donations in her honor be directed to the Menaul Historical Library of the Southwest, 301 Menaul Blvd NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107.