Anna Meiners Gwinn

Anna Ruth Meiners was born on Dec. 14, 1919, in Walla Walla, to Lillian and Evert Meiners, in the midst of a big snowstorm which kept mother and baby at St. Mary’s Hospital for two weeks before returning home to the family wheat ranch on Spring Creek east of Walla Walla. Annie and her older brother Gene attended Coyote School, Annie for first and second grade then they transferred to Dixie School until the eighth grade and then on to WaHi. Anne graduated from high school in 1937 and that summer she was part of the Farmerettes along with her cousin Delia Meiners. She met her future husband George Gwinn at the Rodeo Dance but she was not impressed with “just one more cowboy”.
That fall she enrolled at Whitman and went through Sorority Rush Week and was invited to join several sororities. She had made a friend with another girl during Rush Week and at the end of the week saw this girl sitting by herself and crying, when she asked her friend what was the matter the girl told her that she had not been invited to join any sororities. When Anne asked why she told her it was because she was Jewish, Anne didn’t know that Jews were victims of discrimination and she told her friend she decided not to join any sororities either.
The Fall of 1938 found her at St. Luke’s Nursing School in Spokane but pneumonia forced her to return to the ranch until she recovered. In the fall of 1939 she enrolled at Eastern Washington Normal (now Eastern Washington University) where she ran into George who was the President of the Letterman’s Club. This was quite a change from the guy in the purple cowboy shirt at the Rodeo dance. George graduated in June, 1940 and Anne and George were married at the family ranch in September 1940.
George accepted a teaching position at Molson, Washington where they lived for two years before moving back to the ranch in 1942 with George taking over the farming. A daughter, Georganna, was born in June of 1942; followed by her sister, Sherry in May of 1943. That fall George landed a teaching job at Washington Grade School and the family lived in Walla Walla until George was drafted into the Marines in the summer of 1944 while Anne and the two girls moved back to the ranch.
When George returned from the South Pacific he took a job as Principal and coach at Okanogan High School and where a son (Walter Harris, named after a Marine buddy that was killed on Okinawa) and always called Harris, was born in Jan. 1947. From there they moved to Sweet Home, Oregon for another Principal position and where the youngest son Terry joined the family in July, 1949.
In 1953 George took a job as head of education on an Air Force Base in French Morocco and it was back to the ranch for Anne and the four kids with the three oldest attending Dixie School until December when the family boarded the train at Pendleton headed for Massachusetts and then on a Military Air Transport DC6 across the Atlantic to North Africa. They landed at the Azores for fuel and food and when taking off in stormy weather Harris was scared but when he looked at his Mom she did not seem scared, she was so steady and calm. The family stayed in Morocco for two years and then to Sembach, Germany for one year before returning to the Northwest in 1956.
George taught school and Anne worked as a teacher’s aide for the Portland Schools until they moved to Wallowa in 1968. Anne was the Wallowa High School secretary and George taught at Wallowa Grade School until they retired in 1983. In 1999 they moved back to Walla Walla where they lived out the rest of their days. George passed away in 2011 and Anne passed two months after her 101st birthday.
Anne was a beautiful and stalwart person who loved her family and friends deeply; she spoke her mind and seldom pulled her punches. At age 94 one of her table mates at Park Plaza told her “Anne you are using too much salt” to which she replied “Guess I will just die young”.  Everyone who knew her was glad that they had made her acquaintance.
She leaves behind her surviving children: Georganna, Sherry and Harris all of Walla Walla; her sister, Dorothy Torretta of Renton; and her brother, Don Meiners at the ranch. There are also 12 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and six great-great- grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. Youngest son, Terry died in 2004.
We would like to thank the wonderful staff at Park Plaza for their kindness, and the great help provided by Linda Kingsley for the last months for the incredible dedication and compassionate care that was given by the best caregiver one could ever hope for, Bobbi Cook, you made our lives easier and our mother’s life full and rich, thank you.
At her request there will be no service, she will be laid to rest at Mountain View Cemetery.