Anneliese Stacy, who experienced deprivation and trauma as a child in war-torn Germany, devoted her life to the happiness of children. She died of cancer at her Battle Road home Saturday at age 80.
“There was something about her honest love for kids. They knew it. Kids just know these things,” said Karen Bryant, teacher-director of Haines Head Start.
At age 50, after her own children were grown, Anneliese went to work at the local preschool. She served 28 years, holding every job in the program, including bus driver, cook and teacher-director and earning a child development associate certificate.
She retired in 2013 but until two months ago still came every morning to share breakfast with students.
“She was strong-willed. She had a good sense of right and wrong. She believed in the rules and enforcing them… She established boundaries for children and that made them feel safe. That was one of the biggest lessons I learned from Anneliese,” Bryant said.
Born in 1935, Anneliese was one of six children of Joseph and Berta Fenneral of Tirschenreuth, Germany. Her father was a truck driver and her mother owned and operated a large restaurant and inn.
During World War II, her family went stretches without food or heat, family members said. Malnutrition deformed Anneliese’s feet and aerial bombardment left her with a lifelong terror of thunderstorms, said stepson John Stacy. “She’d run under the covers and scream and sob.”
Bucking her mother’s wish that she become a seamstress, Anneliese moved to England after the war, learning to speak the language while cleaning hotel rooms. “She wanted a job and she wanted her own money. She wanted to do things,” said son Bryan Monson.
In May 1962, Anneliese married Ralph Monson, a U.S. Army interpreter and decoder stationed in Europe. After his discharge, the family moved to Washington state, where Monson attended law school and became a court-appointed attorney. They moved to Baker City, Ore., where he opened a law practice and she took jobs including cleaning motel rooms, working as a lunch cook, moving irrigation pipes and operating a day-care business.
“She always loved kids. Kids gravitated to her. She could just start a conversation with any kid,” said son Bryan.
Raised a devout Catholic with a strict moral code, Anneliese broke with the church to divorce Monson in 1978. A year later, she married Bill Stacy, a divorced mental health counselor who had five children of his own and lived one block away.
Their marriage started out as more of a business arrangement – “she needed another income and he needed someone to cook and clean,” Bryan said – but it grew into a bond neither of them expected.
Stacy said his future wife’s independent streak was evident during one of their first encounters when he waved to her while driving by. She gave him the finger. Stacy spun his car around and demanded an explanation. “I was just making sure you were paying attention” was her response, Stacy said this week.
Anneliese enjoyed playing pranks on her family and became known in Haines for anatomically explicit birthday cakes she baked for friends.
“She was definitely not politically correct,” said son Bryan. “If you didn’t want to know the truth, you knew not to ask her.”
Anneliese enjoyed having company over for dinner. She remembered the birthdays of neighbors, delivered streams of homemade treats to friends and acquaintances, and knitted so many “medevac” hats (for use by patients being transported from town by air ambulance) that she started sending them off to an Indian reservation in Montana.
“Sitting in her house right now are two stacks of hats she just got done,” said friend Becky Nash. “Anneliese meant a lot to a lot of people in this town. She cooked for a lot of people and took care of a lot of people.”
Anneliese enjoyed playing the accordion, polka dancing and camping, family members said. She and Bill moved to Haines in 1985, attracted to the outdoors life here, and became reverse snowbirds, driving down the Alcan Highway each summer to visit friends and family and travel in the Lower 48.
Anneliese Stacy was buried Tuesday at Jones Point Cemetery. She is survived by husband Bill Stacy, by sister Maria Zolch of Tirschenreuth, Germany; and by sister Margaretta Thoma, and brothers Josef Fenneral and Otto Fenneral, all of Oregon. She also is survived by children Mario Monson of Baker City, Ore .; John Monson of League City, Texas; Lester Mills of Rockaway Beach, Ore .; Bryan Monson of Salem, Ore .; Debi Poutre of Portland, Ore .; John Stacy of Sheridan, Wyo .; Barbie Watson of Katy, Texas; and Stephen Stacy of Eugene, Ore.
Donations in Anneliese’s memory can be made to RuralCAP Haines Head Start Parent Committee, P.O. Box 192, Haines, 99827, or to Lynn Canal Counseling, P.O. Box 90, Haines.