Mary Ann Anthony
October 12, 1948 - November 11, 2017
Mary Ann Anthony died at her home in Mountain View, California on November 11, 2017, after a courageous journey of many years with ovarian cancer. Born October 12, 1948 in Lubbock, Texas, Mary Ann was the first child of William Ross and Elizabeth Ann Anthony (maiden name Gilbert). An exceptional student, she was selected to be a Presidential Scholar in 1967, the year she graduated from Lubbock Monterey High School. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. degree in Mathematics, she earned her M.B.A. from the University of Houston, and eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she worked in management positions at several companies that developed business application software, most recently as Director of Product Planning at Oracle Corporation.
In 2002 she retired from Oracle to pursue a second career in personal financial planning. After completing the Certified Financial Planning (CFP) certificate program at the University of California Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension, she worked for a number of small financial planning firms, and also became an instructor for the mathematics course in the certificate program. She found her new career helping people plan their financial futures much more fulfilling than the management positions in high tech she had left behind. She also found personal reward volunteering at local senior centers as an AARP Tax Aide.
Mary Ann loved stories. Even as a child she would escape to her room to read any book that was available. She also loved theater and enjoyed volunteering behind the scenes for community theater groups. It was back stage after a show she co-produced that she met her future husband, who had been in the audience. They were married two and a half years later, on the day she turned forty nine.
After Mary Ann was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009, she began to apply her extraordinary mind to the twin tasks of living as long a life as she could, and living as full a life as she could. While navigating the complex landscape of standard treatments and clinical trials, she travelled to faraway places, joined and contributed to cancer support groups, became an enthusiastic fan of the SF Giants and Stanford Women’s Volleyball, and she started line dancing again. In line dancing Mary Ann found a warm and supportive community to share what became a passion for her. She believed dancing every day was the single most important thing she did to live as long and as full a life as she could.
Mary Ann was predeceased by both her parents, Bill and Betty. She is survived by her husband Ken Fowkes, two brothers, Will Anthony and John Anthony (wife Cheryl), of Lubbock, Texas and sister B. J. Bertrand (husband Bradley), of Tyler, Texas, many nieces and nephews and a host of in-laws from her husband Ken’s large family.
A memorial for Mary Ann will be held on Saturday, December 9th, in Sunnyvale. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation or act of kindness that you feel honors your memory of Mary Ann. She enjoyed supporting TheatreWorks of Silicon Valley (theatreworks. org), The Teal Foundation (www.thetealrun.org), Cancer CAREPoint (www. cancercarepoint.org), and the Northwest YMCA (www. ymcasv.org/northwest/html/ giving.html).