Thinking about Annie

Walking home today, I found myself thinking about Annie Burnham. For the uninitiated, Annie was a very large presence in our lives for a few years, until she died in 1990.

I first met Annie when I was assigned to be her visiting teacher in 1980. Saying she was hostile doesn't describe the situation very accurately. Louise Childers, an elderly sister in the ward, was my companion. The first time we went, Annie wouldn't let us in. She talked to us through the screen door. Both Louise and Annie were Southern, and I think Ann might have been sharper with us, but the accent stopped her. In fact, I was told that the Ward Mission leader had gotten in to see her once on the strength of his recognition of the county she was from in Georgia by her accent. (He was from a neighboring county.)

We kept going - and developed a pretty good rapport with her grandson Dwayne!! One time, however, I think she forgot and let us in. After that I think she realized she couldn't very well not let us in the next time. Over time, she talked about her issues with the church. It turned out that she had been baptized as a child when her parents joined the church. Her parents had been very controlling and dictatorial, and they would only let her associate with the other LDS kids in their ward. But there weren't a lot of members in Georgia, and at age 16 Annie rebelled and ran away and got married.

She was gone for 9 months - and then her husband dropped her off at her mother's house - and Annie was in labor. She gave birth to a son - a son her mother appropriated by telling Annie to go to the city and work and they'd raise the boy. And Annie did just that.

A few years later, she married again and gave birth to a daughter. She and her husband headed for the west. At one stop, their baby daughter seemed very ill to Annie, so they went to the ER. They told her the baby was fine and sent them home. That night the baby died - Annie always believed the doctors knew her little girl was not going to live and just didn't tell her.

That marriage didn't last either, but Annie did make it to California. She married again and had a son and a daughter. She told me that she occasionally went to church and even had her children baptized. But once when she asked for some assistance, she was insulted when the Relief Society President came over to assess her needs. When the Bishop and R.S. President found out that they had offended her, they came over and apologized. They tried to explain to her that it was just Church policy to be sure that aid recipients were truly in need. However, Annie was not convinced.

Years went by, and Annie had visiting teachers and home teachers of varying degrees of diligence. And then I met her.

As years and months went by, Annie came to trust me. And she was blessed with a great home teacher and a Relief Society President who understood her needs. Annie needed work - and I needed a babysitter, so she started babysitting for me one day a week. What a treat that was. It was the year I was pregnant with Noah, and it was such a treat to go off every Wednesday and do whatever I wanted to do, knowing that Eliza and Hannah were in good hands. I remember one time I went to the show all by myself - saw "Three Men and a Baby," and I was wondering who would be in the theater at 11 in the morning. I soon found out just who goes to the show at 11 a.m. - the Senior Citizen Set!!

Word got out, and soon other women in the stake and neighborhood hired Annie. She enjoyed the money and the work. It was a win/win situation for all of us. After Noah was born, Ann absolutely adored him. He could scream and cry and fuss and she would just hold and comfort him. One time she was playing with him and he laughed out loud - he was only a few months old too. She was delighted - and it was delightful to watch her joy!

Annie had smoked for many years. She did quit, but the damage had been done. She suffered from congestive heart failure, and she continued to get worse. Soon she was getting hospitalized often. Many times I would feel impressed to call her. But I wouldn't always call. And every time I didn't, she would turn out to be in some kind of crisis. One time her son - who was exactly my age - was dying of cancer at County USC. She'd had surgery and couldn't go visit. I had just given birth to Eliza, so I wasn't up to the trip either. Her son died - Eliza and I went - along with the home teacher and the Relief Society President. Ann came - as did her son's former wife and his two daughters. And that was it. I couldn't believe someone could live for 38 years and no one seemed to care when he died!

At the end, I had figured out that when the spirit prompted me to call Annie, I needed to act on that prompting. I got a call from her home teacher one night. He'd just been to see her and suggested I go over in the morning. I felt I should go right then - but it was after 10 p.m. I finally went - walked in to Santa Teresita and no one said boo! And I found Ann and sat with her for a time. She couldn't talk, but she could squeeze my hand. I left around midnight.

I got a call the next morning that she had died at 2 a.m.

I once asked Eliza, Hannah and Noah if they remembered Ann. They all said they didn't really remember her but that I had talked about her so often that they thought they knew her.

Maybe that's why I wanted to write this - I want to always remember Annie Burnham and the many lessons she taught me. I don't have a single photograph of her - but I will never forget her.