Anna Marie Simpson
Port Townsend, Wash.
May 23, 1945 – Dec. 29, 2016
Anna Marie Simpson, a longtime resident and volunteer extraordinaire in the Cape George community, died Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016 at her home. She was 68, and had been battling cancer.
Ann, as she was known to her neighbors, was a fiercely independent soul who found satisfaction in donating her time and talents to neighborhood programs ranging from quilting to building code enforcement.
“She did everything herself,” recalled Debbie Buxton, a longtime friend and “adopted niece” who helped nurse Ann through her final weeks at home. “She travelled alone, built her own house. She was always there to help, but never asked for help herself.”
Ann was born and raised in the Bremerton area, and went to work in the 60s at the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. Later she transferred to the Keyport submarine base where, as an ordinance equipment mechanic, she worked on naval torpedoes.
When she retired in the late 1990s, she moved to Cape George, where she built the home where she has lived the past 18 years, surrounded by hundreds of knickknacks – especially photos and models of lighthouses.
At Cape George, she promptly became involved in her adopted community. For years, she helped manage the marina shop, and eventually worked with the local quilting club, fabricating countless quilts which she donated to foster children, injured service members or to hospice patients. She also served her homemade cookies for the monthly community lecture series.
More recently, she served as the volunteer building committee chair, enforcing community regulations over new home construction and remodeling projects. Members who might have underestimated the small, wiry chair learned otherwise when she showed up at building sites with a thick stack of regulations, a notebook and a 100-foot tape measure. “She knew the building regs inside out,” said her friend and fellow quilter, Jeannie Ramsey. “And she was a stickler for the rules.” Even in recent years, she continued her community work while battling her disease.
At her wishes, there will be no formal services.
