Ann Was born July 23, 1949, at Holy Cross hospital in Salt Lake City, the first of 5 children born to Norman Robert and Bonnie Cummings Stromness. Her childhood was filled with love for her family and close relationships with an extended family that lasted her entire life. At an early age she started taking piano lessons. She had a natural ability and never had to be reminded to practice. The next-door neighbor was not so fond of her music so when she would start practicing, he would start up his lawn mower and just let it run. Contrary to this neighbor's opinion, Ann became a very accomplished pianist and enjoyed playing it all of her life. When Ann was about 10, she had lovely blonde curls, and a photo of her studying the New Testament was selected to be used as an emblem on the Primary bandeleau. Primary girls earned the emblem for memorizing scriptures. Many a primary girl of the 1950's and 60's will also remember Ann's picture on the nameplate page of their New Testament. Happy summers were spent in Brighton, Utah at the Cummings family cabin. One of Ann and her close cousins' favorite activities was catching the ubiquitous but now nearly extinct boreal toads. They also enjoyed played cards, cooking hot dogs over a campfire, and hiking up to the mountain lakes. When Ann was 16, her father's work took the family to Pittsburgh, PA, where she graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1967. She excelled in all her classes and was always on the honor roll. She became a meticulous and creative seamstress under the tutelage of her mother. Over the years, Ann made numerous dance recital costumes for her children and grandchildren, and countless quilts for her family and others. Ann cherished her relationship with her mother. In addition to sewing, Ann learned many other home making skills from her. When Ann was a young mother herself, she was devastated when her mother suddenly passed away and she lost that source of comfort, wisdom and reassurance that is so important to young mothers. Other things Ann enjoyed included visiting her grandfather's candy store in Salt Lake City and the companionship of her two cousins who were the same age: Marie and Vicki. She was an avid reader and stamp collector. She read the entire Wizard of Oz series and all of Louisa May Alcott's books. Gone with the Wind was another favorite. One year for Halloween her mother made her an "Ozma of Oz" costume because she was such a fan of the Oz books. Ann's story After graduating from high school Ann attended Brigham Young University, where she majored in French and minored in education. Ann was very intelligent, studied hard and graduated with honors in three years. During her freshman year, in the spring semester, she met her future husband, Jake Peterson at a dance. The next year, on August 20th, 1969, Ann married Jake for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City temple. The marriage was performed by Sterling W. Still. After being married, Ann went to school and also worked selling newspapers by telephone for Deseret news. Upon Jake's graduation, without honors, from Brigham Young, they moved to Salt Lake City where Ann worked for First Security Bank. That fall, Jake went to law school at the University of Idaho. Ann worked for the university as a secretary until the birth of her first child, Wayne, who was born on April 11th, 1972, at Gritman Memorial hospital in Moscow, Idaho. Next, Amy followed her birth in Moscow on March 15th, 1974. The family lived in a trailer purchased for $3200.00 on the outskirts of Moscow. Upon graduating from law school, without honors, Ann moved with her husband to Boise, where they purchased a house for $28,000.00 using the proceeds from the sale of their trailer as a down payment. The house wasn't a mansion but was newly built and had three bedrooms and two baths. Ann babysat at home, making enough money to purchase quality furniture, which we still have in our house. She would go to Hendren’s furniture store, each week with all the baby-sitting money until the furniture was paid for and have it delivered. Besides baby-sitting, Ann was also the secretary to her husband, typing documents at home. She became proficient. Once, when Jake had to go to Emmett for a case, she interviewed two separate people about filing for divorce, typed up their papers which of course were perfect. Ann's second son, John Peterson, was born on February 28th, 1977. Ann continued to be busy all the time, working in the Primary, being a visiting teacher with her friend Christine Poole, and sewing, sewing, sewing Natalie was born on June 11th, 1979. Ann's last child was born seven years later, on August 13th, 1986. Ann loved her children, each of them, and gave them the very best she had to offer. Each was special to her. The girls all had dance lessons, Ann sewed their costumes. Piano lessons for all, although some were more gifted than others. Ann and her husband purchased a condominium in McCall upon the urging for the stake president Marvin Peterson. Before purchasing the condo, Jake, Ann and the children would go to Grandjean, where a trailer they owned was parked. The family could barely fit into the trailer. There wasn't a place to go to church. In McCall however, there was. So, a condo was purchased and then a year later, another condo was purchased, in Aspen Village. Ann purchased a sewing machine that she left in McCall and spent countless days sewing with her friends Joellen McCallister and Jeannie Peck. In this period of time, Ann found her vocation, being a bill collector. She called her work, Dialing for Dollars. A corporation was formed with the president of Ada Collection Services. Ann was good at her collection work and her children can attest as to the amount of work Ann did. It was a 40-hour-a-week job. She had her children help, putting demand letters into envelopes, stamps on the envelopes etc. So how good was Ann at collecting money? As her children left, the money helped fund the boy's missions, pay totally for all of her children's undergraduate education at BYU, Boise State, and cosmetology school. The money purchased cars for her children. Ann began quilting during this period of time and continued quilting until she could no longer see or reason as to how to put the quilts together. Ann was a temple worker until she could no longer remember what she needed to do and had to be released. Upon the children leaving home, Jake and Ann started to travel and went many times to Europe and also Russia. She loved those trips. Jake and Ann went many times to France, where Ann would plan the itinerary. About 12 years ago, Ann that was energetic, loved to sew, travel and did all the income taxes started to fade. It was slow process, but Alzheimer’s robbed her of everything that made her life special. As we knew it would, her life was finally taken.
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