Anne Slesnick, mother of former Coral Gables mayor and community matriarch, dies at 101
What life lesson and impact have you on a family and community when you live a good life to the age of 101 and pass peacefully surrounded by those whom you have helped mold?
For Anne Leidel Slesnick — mother to attorney and former Coral Gables Mayor Donald Slesnick, motherin-law to his late wife, Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick, and surrogate mother to the greater Coral Gables community, the lesson is one of love and honor.
Slesnick, the family matriarch, died Friday at the home she shared with her son’s family. She was 101.
“My mother instilled in me an absolute respect for God and the church and a dedication to a higher power, if you will, and that kind of seeps down into the fact that you appreciate honesty and integrity,” Don Slesnick said. “And the fact you have values in life.”
Born Anne Thompson Farrior on Sept. 2, 1922, in a small, rural farm town in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised during the Great Depression with her two brothers by a single mother, young Anne grew up in “absolute poverty,” her son said. Her core, however, was solid. Rich in values and respect.
During World War II, while working as a civilian at Maxwell Army Air Corp Field in Montgomery, Farrior fell in love with a young staff sergeant named Donald David Slesnick. After his return from Italy, where he had been stationed during the war, the married Slesnicks moved to his hometown of Buffalo, New York, where they began to raise their two children, Don II and Luanne.
In 1953, the family moved to the Miami area, and through several moves made their way to Coral Gables by the 1970s. Slesnick did not have a traditional outside job until the age of 70 after her husband
MY MOTHER INSTILLED IN ME AN ABSOLUTE RESPECT FOR GOD AND THE CHURCH
Don Slesnick