Dear Annie Laurie

Remarks made at the funeral of Annie Laurie Pomeranz by son Jim Pomeranz, August 11, 2007

Good morning. Thanks to everyone here today. Thanks to those who came last night and to Mom’s house during the last few days and to those who dropped in to visit with Mom during her last few days, weeks and months. Thanks to those who were unable to visit but who have held Mom and her children in their thoughts and prayers.

You offer wonderful support to my brothers and sisters and me in our time of grief, but more importantly, I believe that each and everyone who has reached out during this time has done so to honor our mother, Annie Laurie Pomeranz.

Thanks to my brothers and sisters and the many members of our extended family for allowing me to share a few thoughts about our Mom. We are here to honor her. We are proud of her.

We are proud of her for many things

--For her support of our father as he and others built businesses in this community that reached across the country and around the world. She was very much a part of those successes.

--We are proud of her for raising the six of us—Robbie, Suzanne, Brooks, Sarah, Laurie and me—and doing … a pretty good job.

Though we were tough, she was tougher.

--We are proud of the way she became a community activist, teaching us all to do more with our lives, to have a wide array of interests while staying focused on many important aspects of life, especially family. Her family—immediate and extended—reached far and wide, and she constantly stayed in touch.

--We are proud of her efforts to make Sanford a better place for everyone. She loved this community and took an interest in everything.

Mom was also was an entertainer, allowing friends, relatives and business acquaintances from all over the world into her home. And she did it with her children present. She wanted us to take part in the friendships that she and Dad developed.

Any of the six of us could talk forever about our Mom.

So could her flock of nieces and nephews and cousins and friends.

I want to read in part a letter written to Mom from one of her nieces, first cousin Ann Partridge Johnson, who is here today with her mother, Sarah Overton Partridge, (Mom’s sister). Having that family in Sanford, visiting Annie Laurie, has been a common occurrence forever. This is where Aunt Sarah grew up, and in many respects, it is very much a place where she raised her children.

Ann sent this letter last week, just a few days before Mom’s passing. As I sat next to Mom and read it to her, it was obvious to Mom and others that Ann, as always, was writing with sincerity and warmth and from her heart. Ann, we thank you for this.

And, while this is from Ann, again, it could have been written by any number of relatives, friends and associates of our Mother. You speak for many.

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Dear Aunt Laurie,

I'm thinking of you every day, savoring a lifetime of memories made possible by you and your commitment to family and friends and community.

You have been a constant in all of our lives—

Always there in that pine-paneled home,

Swimming your laps in your pool,

Your children coming and going,

Playing that beautiful grand piano in your living room,

Holding court at the lengthy table in your Parisian dining room,

Racing around town in your old station wagon or in the Town car, and often stopping to prune someone's hedges,

Spreading your love of music at our beloved Baptist church and

Taking care of our Brooks family business.

(You are) Tireless, involved in Life as each of us should be, but rarely are.

How many different organizations have benefited under your diligence … from your vigilance?

Nothing escaped your eye, or your critique, or your care?

Certainly not us!

And not the swimmers and the Scouts and the Meredith girls and the old Sanford High School, now the Lee County Arts & Community Center,

Not the schools and the newspaper and your congressman...and even the President, I expect, on occasion!

You kept them straight and you kept them honest and you kept them going, not to mention correcting their poor grammar!

What a woman!

Being your niece was an education all by itself. Long before we knew about "women's lib", we saw your strength and your talents, and we were inspired. Your self-confidence, your sense of purpose, and the freedom you felt to express your opinions was infectious.

Somewhere along the way, while raising six wild and crazy kids and hosting every family event for dozens of cousins and brothers and sisters and in-laws for over FIFTY YEARS, you, Annie Laurie, became a living legend.

Recognized by many and bestowed with various honors and titles, you did us proud.

You carried on the family honor … the good done by Grandpa and Grandma before you… in our eyes and in God's eyes.

And always, you made us feel welcome. You opened your home and your heart to us, and it became our home, too. Your constancy was our anchor in a world that changed too fast.

When we needed a good "fix" of old-fashioned hearth and home, we knew where to head. Fresh fruit and a yummy almond pound cake, pork chops on the grill, watermelon by the pool, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins stopping by…. these were the reality of Sanford and Annie Laurie.

During long summer visits, we'd live at your swimming pool by day, playing tetherball or showing off our dives or having underwater races. How many times did we go dripping water through the house, when it was time to change to go back to Grandma's house for the night, and then eagerly await our trip to the Dairy Bar for a good old hot fudge sundae after dinner?

On a hot summer Sunday morning, we'd get dressed up for Sunday school, racing up the stairs to keep up with Robbie and Suzanne so we could find our classroom. We even did a few Vacation Bible schools, where we learned our Sword Drills, and where the coke machine was downstairs in the church basement!

I thank God for those times, those memories. They formed my character much more than I realized at the time. I would not trade them for any thing. Being in church with you, Annie Laurie, and Mom and Carol and Grandpa was precious beyond words. To this day, I cry in church whenever I hear certain old Baptist hymns being sung. The traditions, the heritage, that you and my mother and my grandparents gave us by living your beliefs were a great gift, a blessing that will carry us and sustain us.

We are part of a wonderful and proud family … a long line of Brooks and Overton descendants.

And no one was more outstanding than you have been. You have lived your life as you saw fit, and, as Grandma would have said, “with a sense of the fitness of things."

I thank you. … For everything … Love, Ann

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Ann, your thoughts and recollections are what we think of daily.

While for the most part, we attended public schools, during other times of the day and at night, Mom also home-schooled us in her own way, teaching us to take interest in others and many things beyond the trivial. And, she wanted AND WANTS us to keep in touch with family.

She wanted us to do well in whatever we chose to do, but she also wanted us to follow her lead, to do good with our lives, with our family, with our friends and our communities.

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The six of us have especially followed Mom’s constant reminder of using correct grammar. No ending sentences with a preposition; the right way to use I and me; and others.

Even as she lays…a-a-a-a-a…lies here before us, I’m sure Mom has heard these words and all others since her passing, and somehow, some way, she’ll let us know if we’ve done good.

Mom, you’ve done good and then some.

Thanks for everything.

We love you…

We will miss you.