Anne Chessin McKelvey
“Yesterday Was Wonderful”
These were the last words of Anne Chessin McKelvey, a resident of Greenwich for 63 years on Taconic and then Cary Rd., who died at Greenwich Hospital one year ago today, of Covid-19, on Thursday, May 6th, 2021, at almost 104 years of age. Mother, wife, survivor, Anne was born in Guttenberg, New Jersey in 1917 during the 1st pandemic, the 2nd child of Samuel Chessin and Rose Bachman, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Having lost her younger brother, Paul, recently, she is survived by her sister, Bertha Zimler, who turns 103 this summer.
Her mother, Rose’s, parents: Rabbi Milton and Malcha Bachman of Odessa sent their seven children to America from 1904-1920 to escape Russian pograms. Her father, Samuel Chesky of Kiev, became Samuel Chessin at Ellis Island, marrying Rose in 1912.
After Milton died of polio, Anne was born: July 22, 1917. Her father pushed a candy cart while her mother took in laundry. Anne loved music and photography, so they saved to buy her a piano and at 16, people gathered at the street window on 84th Street in Manhattan to hear her play. Her parents bought her a camera and she learned to develop in black and white. She went to Hebrew School, unusual for a girl, and after challenging the Rabbi about eating pork, was politely asked not to return.
In 1931, she entered Hunter High, graduating from the College in 1939, and at her 80th Reunion, as the oldest alum, she sat at the President’s table. She ballroom danced, worked at Willoughby’s Camera store, and was a secretary for a lawyer who was so mean, she said, that when she saved enough to take a trip to Europe, she left her job on a Friday, boarded the Ile de
France and sent her boss a card saying: “Having a wonderful time, I quit,” traveling Europe for five months on her own!
When she hit it off with Robert Adams McKelvey at a Catskills resort, he asked if she needed a ride to Manhattan and she went with him, leaving her Studebaker in the parking lot. At nearly 41, she married him, settled in Greenwich and raised three daughters: Lori Anne, Wendy Lynne and Sandra Lee.
She shared her love of music, photography, ballet, gardening; squeezing fresh orange juice every morning, making sandwiches with whole wheat bread, caring for 5 dogs, 8 cats, 50 chickens and a skunk; drove to music lessons, dance and drama rehearsals, parttime jobs and started a dog walking business after our father died when we were in college. She encouraged our dreams and that we stay close as sisters. And after losing her right eye, she used a magnifier to read with the periphery of her left eye, amblyopic since birth.
She’ll be missed by her daughters, and wonderful aides: Helen Perry, Sharon Gannon, Nadine Soloman and Laura Siddi. But, we were all able to say good bye, thanks to the compassionate staff at Greenwich Hospital, especially Dr. Lieu, who suited us up to be with her in her final days.
She leaves three sons-inlaw: Vincent Urbanowski, who shared her love of photography and music, Aaron Freimark, whose computer help she relied on, and Aldo Medeiros, who built her a handicapped bathroom that helped her in her later years. Grandchildren: Vincent Robert Urbanowski (25), Joia Miko McKelvey (17), Robert Justin Freimark (14); and step-grandson Oscar Medeiros (24).
She’ll be remembered in the little, but profound ways she touched us with her spirit, kindness and love. Her ashes will be interred on Sunday, May 22 with her husband, Robert’s, at the Little Dutch Reform Church in Claverack, New York; with her greatest achievement being that she lived a life where she could say at the end, as she left, that “Yesterday was wonderful.”