Nancy Rose Marie Carolan, 63, artist and entrepreneur

Nancy Rose Marie Carolan, 63, of Overbrook Farms, an artist and entrepreneur who helped spark the revival of the Reading Terminal Market, died Wednesday, Sept. 10, at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse of acute myeloid leukemia.

In 1971, she bought out a former stall owner and created Nancy Carolan's Health Bar. The bar featured fresh-squeezed carrot and spinach juice and macrobiotic staples such as seaweed soup, and brown rice and vegetables.

At the time, the 80-year-old market was "half vacant," according to Jonathan Takiff, writing in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1972. She saw the market as low-pressure and vital.

"The rent is cheap, the upkeep low," she told Takiff, "so we can keep our prices down. There's none of the heated competition you often find at farmers' markets.

"You build up personal contact with your customers. You want to make them happy, keep them coming back."

In 1975, Mrs. Carolan left the market when she and husband Terry, a physician, moved to Denver so he could complete a pediatric residency. Two years later, they moved to Kauai, Hawaii.

While raising four sons there, Mrs. Carolan assisted in her husband's pediatric practice and acted in community theater. She starred as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.

She often visited Philadelphia, and when here, she introduced her sons to the Reading Terminal Market, which by then had grown to more than 100 vendors.

She and her husband divorced in 1997. Eight years later, she returned to Overbrook Farms to care for her aging parents, Joseph and Helen Alessandroni. They have since died.

In 2007, she joined the staff of Trader Joe's in Center City, where she prepared gourmet treats for customers to sample. She later worked in Trader Joe's at Suburban Square. Her bosses praised her for product knowledge and for staging appealing food shows.

She resigned for health reasons this past summer.

Mrs. Carolan grew up with seven siblings in Overbrook Farms and graduated in 1968 from Friends' Central School in Wynnewood, where she starred on the girls' basketball team.

She attended Boston Conservatory of Music before her marriage in 1969. A striking 6-foot brunette, she modeled until opening her health bar.

In recent years, she made and sold jewelry, gardened and blogged about it, vacationed in Hawaii, and joined a writer's group. In 2011 she played the mother of Christ in Narberth Community Theatre's production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

"She had a very strong personality. She really embraced life," said her sister Sally A. Downey, a former Inquirer reporter. "She was a warrior, fighting her disease, and starting over after her divorce."

Surviving, in addition to her former husband and sister, are sons Sean, Seumas Brendan and Eamonn; four brothers; two other sisters; and three grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, at St. Francis Xavier Church - The Oratory, 24th and Green Streets. Her sons will scatter her ashes in Hawaii.

Donations may be made to Narberth Community Theatre, Box 223, Narberth, Pa., 19072.