Nina Anatolia Gault

Nina Gault died Monday, April 24th, 2023 in Crestview Florida in the presence of her family. Nina was born on September 23rd, 1937 in Los Angeles California, the first child of Nicholas and Carolyn Schmidt Ossipoff.

Nina’s father was an FBI then CIA agent in the early 20th century and his positions took the family around the world living in Virginia then Japan, where Nina had many wonderful memories of the culture and friendships formed there. While still in high school she met a young sailor who would sneak into the high school parties with his friends while still a teenager himself. Archie and Nina were smitten with each other from the start and soon were married in the American Embassy in Tokyo Japan on August 18, 1956, after which they jumped on a ship to San Francisco, then the long trip to Archie’s hometown of Columbus Mississippi.

Their first two boys, Scott and Patrick, were born in the late 1950’s while Archie worked in the family cafe and attended Mississippi State University on the G.I. Bill. Nina would be called up to the cafe to run the cash register and get to know many of Archie’s hometown friends.

The third child, Nick, was born in 1962 and Nina and Archie now had three boys to raise. After the boys were older Nina began taking courses at Mississippi State College for Women, now Mississippi University for Women, and graduated with a degree in Art in 1979. Nina continued to work with pottery, charcoal drawing, watercolor paints, and for a short time in the glassblowing studio from where much of her best work was created.

Nina continued to work in the pottery studio for years and only ceased when she became Nana as two grandchildren were born and she began to help take care of them after school. After Archie passed in 2011 she moved to Ocean Springs Mississippi, where Nick’s family had relocated a few years prior. She became an asset in flower design to St John’s Episcopal Church and made many good friends there and in the Daughters of the King Chapter at St John’s. Nina also found a pottery studio in Ocean Springs to continue some of her sculpting and left us many wonderful pieces to remember her by.

Nina was predeceased by her husband, Archie and her son, Scott. She is survived by her son Patrick and his wife Kathy, son Nick; grandchildren Nathalie Putt and her husband Brian, Nicholas; and her great granddaughter Sophie Lane Putt.