Anne Alethea Connelly–Bissell was born in Croydon, near London England to Cyril and Vera Connelly on September 29, 1938. During World War II, which broke out in Europe the next year, Anne was evacuated twice to northern England with her mother and younger brother. At one point, the home in which she was living received serious damage from a bomb, and it was necessary for her mother and younger children to move to another location.
In 1948, some three years after the war ended, Anne’s father left for Canada to find work and a home in Ottawa. The following year Anne immigrated to Canada with her mother and younger brother Cyril. She attended schools in Ottawa until her last year of high school, then finished the last year at what is now Kingsway College in Oshawa. In the fall of 1957 she enrolled as an education major at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. While there, she met and later married her husband Ron in June, 1960.
Over the next few years, Anne gave birth to four children. After the youngest started school, she worked for several years as a secretary-receptionist for the Better Living Center in Germantown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. She spent several summers teaching swimming and serving as head lifeguard at church summer camps. In 1979 the family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba where Anne worked for about four years as a Secretary-Receptionist for Park Manor Personal Care Home. Returning to Andrews University with Ron while he pursued further studies, she worked for about two years as a secretary to the head of the Physical Education Department.
A year after coming back to Canada in 1985 when Ron was invited to teach at what is now Burman University, Anne became the secretary-receptionist for Parkview Adventist Academy and served in that position for ten years. She then left Canada again in 1996, this time to work in the Philippines for eight years as the thesis and dissertation editor at the graduate school Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies located near Manila. When Anne officially retired in 2004, she again returned to Canada to live in Lacombe, but continued to work on as a volunteer. Between 2004 and 2019 when the first wave of Covid arrived, she made eleven trips to Thailand, spending two or three winter months each time as a volunteer in various capacities including assisting the food service manager and tutoring students who were in the process of learning English while Ron taught classes there.
Anne was predeceased by her parents Cyril and Vera Connelly; her sister Joan (McVarish); and her three brothers David, Michael, and Cyril. She is survived by her husband Ron; her cousin and adopted sister Valerie (Tander); her brother Cyril’s wife, Lynn; her children Kay Graca (Pedro), Ronald Mark (Michele), Kirsten Palipane (Erroll), and Geoffrey (Rebecca); nine grandsons; two granddaughters; one great-grandson; several unofficially “adopted” children and grandchildren who call her “Mom” or ”Grandma”; and many friends.
Those wishing to make donations in Anne’s memory may send them to The Red Deer Hospice Society, 99 Arnot Avenue, Red Deer T4R 3S6, or to A Better World in Lacombe, Alberta.
The Funeral Service will be livestream broadcast at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 14, 2022. The video link button is located below
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