ANNE MORROW NEES

BANGOR – Anne Morrow Nees, 86, died peacefully Jan. 3, 2004, from consequences of Parkinson’s Disease, which she had contended with for 10 years. She was a retired social worker and a working genealogist. Mrs. Nees moved to Maine in January 2000, and she resided until August at the Park East Villa Apartments and then at Westgate Manor. She made many good friends in both places. The family is especially grateful to the neighbors and home helpers who enabled her to remain independent for as long as possible, and to the nurses, therapists and aides who made her last months comfortable despite increasing health problems. She was born Anne Virginia Morrow on Sept. 7, 1917, in Norman, Okla., to Lester W. W. Morrow and Esther Kennedy Morrow. At the time, her father was teaching electrical engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He later taught at Cornell, Yale and Rutgers University, where he was professor of engineering. He also worked for the Corning Company and edited The Electrical World for Macmillan. The family moved several times, but Anne spent most of her childhood in Ithaca and Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y. She earned a B.A. degree from Cornell in sociology and personnel management in 1938. During the war, she worked in Chicago for Sears Roebuck, where she was personnel manager for two stores. While living in Chicago with her widowed mother, Anne met Lawrence Paul Nees “Larry”, an auditor for Interstate Brands Corporation, whom she married in 1946 in Cincinnati. He retired as senior vice-president of Interstate Brands in 1976. Anne spent more than 20 years, primarily in Chicago, but also including time in Cincinnati and Houston, supporting Larry’s career, raising three children, managing an active and varied social life, and donating her skills as a volunteer. She served as president of the Child Welfare League of Chicago and of her local PTA. After a final corporate move to Kansas City and with her children all in college, she returned to school herself and earned a master of social work degree from the University of Kansas in 1970. She worked until retirement as a child welfare worker for the State of Kansas. Her supervisor, Hilde Farley of Kansas City and Lawrence, Kan., remained a lifelong friend. Anne spent more than two decades devoting her considerable energy and passion for detail to genealogical work. At first, she concentrated on her own family, especially the paternal line stemming from Alexander Morrow, who settled in the tip of the West Virginia panhandle (then still part of Virginia) with his seven children around 1799. Collaborating with her brother, George and many cousins in Alexander’s line, she compiled Alexander Morrow 1745-1817 of Brooke County, (W) Virginia and his descendents (Gateway Press, 1993). Through this book, she met many family members descended from Alexander, as well as quite a few Morrows descended from families that went to Ohio and the Carolinas and never overlapped with her family (at least this side of the great pond). They got to know her through her book, nevertheless. She traveled from Utah to Maine and to points in-between to check parish and county records, meet family members she’d corresponded with, and find out about the general history of the places where her family had lived. She was always very generous about sharing the information, methods, and sources she had acquired during this project. For many years, she was a regular volunteer at the Johnson County (Kansas) Public Library, where she helped set up the genealogy collection. She was predeceased by her parents, her husband, Larry Nees; and her brothers, John Lockard Morrow and George Lester Morrow. She is survived by her children, Virginia Nees Hatlen and spouse, Burton, of Bangor, Carol Nees Smith of Kansas City, and Lawrence Paul Nees and spouse, Vicky, of Philadelphia; by her grandchildren, Hedda Rachel Steinhoff and Alexander Mclean Nees; and by a sister-in-law, Charlotte Nees of Cincinnati, as well as by many Morrow and Nees nieces and nephews. A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, at Brookings-Smith, 133 Center St., Bangor, with the Rev. Kevin Holsapple, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church officiating. Friends who wish to remember Virginia in a special way may contribute in her memory to the Maine Parkinson Society (Maine Health Learning Center, Maine Medical Center-Scarborough, 100 US Rt. #1 Unit 106, Scarborough, ME 04074-9308).