Anne Pope died peacefully in her home on Sunday, September 4. Her eldest son, Rick, was by her side.
Anne was passionate about music. She occasionally played piano, sang solos and sang in the choir, directing it at times, for worship at CUCC. She also served as the church’s Office Manager for many years. Anne was a regular at the 9am Taize service and was there at its inception nearly 30 years ago. She enjoyed leading those services at various times. Anne loved CUCC and her friends there brought her much joy.
Please keep her family and friends in your prayers as they grieve her death.
A memory from her friend, Lavon Page:
Anne Pope was instrumental in modernizing church operations during the long service of Pastor Cally Rogers-Witte. While she was office manager during the 1980s, Anne’s office was in what is now the choir’s “robing” room, and Cally’s office was in what is now the back of the sanctuary. In the late 1980s both Anne and Cally had Macintosh computers of the original “box” design on their desks. Anne and I created the first database of church members, another database of church financial records, and computerized management of the church checking account. Meanwhile Cally was figuring out how to write her sermons and correspondence with her own computer. Cally’s standing instructions to me were that if she (Cally) was suggesting that we do things one way and Anne was suggesting something else, I should “Do it like Anne suggests.” Within a fairly short time we accomplished not only the checklist of things mentioned above, but also Anne and I had shifted production of the monthly church newsletter to a page layout program. Included here is an example of those vintage newsletters which constituted the first generation of CUCC digitally produced communications.
For many years Anne applied her musical talents to CUCC worship, not only in the church choir but also in the Taize service after it began in the early 1990s. If anyone was wanting to plan a Taize service and needed help with the music, Anne was happy to play piano for whatever music they selected. She was largely responsible for bringing so many different folks over the years into creative roles in the Taize service. In the choir photo from 1975, you’ll see Anne right in the middle of the photo.