Nathalie Hubbard Bramson (Bonsal)

Firstborn to loving, old-Boston parents during World War II, Nathalie Hubbard enjoyed a childhood of Beatrix Potter, enriching extended family, and two little brothers. Shy and nervous due to reaching her full 5'10" height at age 12, Nathalie navigated a love for French language, British heritage, geometry, and history, and considered becoming a math teacher.

Nathalie attended Radcliffe College, majored in Social Relations, and was a member of the first Radcliffe class – 1963 – to receive Harvard degrees. She appeared in a 1966 episode of To Tell The Truth, where she and a fellow decoy impersonated a noted Harvard personality, their third co-contestant. Nathalie and company successfully bamboozled the celebrity panel. The fabulously fun recording can still be found.

Defying tradition, Nathalie moved to New York City on her own to take a job as an investment analyst. Under her first husband's name of Bonsal, she built a professional reputation in which she took terrific pride, and broke a glass ceiling as the first female Vice President of the publishing company Macmillan Inc.

She and her second husband, Leon Bramson, moved to Washington, D.C. and had a son, Sam, Nathalie's "miracle baby", born a month before her 44th birthday. While raising him, Nathalie enthusiastically volunteered her talents to numerous organizations, including at her son's schools (i.e. the Parents Association at Beauvoir, and the Landon Symphonette). She was an active parishioner at her beloved church, St. Alban's Episcopal, where she often served as "gravy queen" for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. She contributed car rides and other care to members of the aging-in-place support organization, Chevy Chase At Home. And she was a leading presence at the Woman's Club of Chevy Chase (where she served as president from 2014 to 2016) and the Montgomery County Federation of Women's Clubs (honorary president 2018 to 2020).

All the while, Nathalie lovingly cared for her husband Lee. When a doctor told him it was either a long-term regimen of eye drops, or a hot washcloth over his eyes, she prepared the hot compress for him daily after he came home from work. She cooked for him and accompanied him on his fishing vacations (and out-fished him!). And she was by his side for his 11-year battle with dementia.

He and other family affectionately dubbed Nathalie the WGS, World's Greatest Shopper, for her highly thoughtful gift-giving. She would never give up finding the right thing.

She leaves her son, Samuel Appleton Bramson, and her brother, the Rev. Dr. Francis Hubbard. She was predeceased by her beloved husband Leon Bramson, and her brother Charles Townsend Hubbard. She and her brothers were beloved children of the late Nathalie Appleton Hubbard and the late Charles Wells Hubbard, III..

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 26th, at 2pm, at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., with a reception there to follow. Interment will be private.

The memorial service will be live streamed. Click Here to Watch

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Woman's Club of Chevy Chase, St. Alban's Episcopal Church, or to Chevy Chase At Home.