Ann Bartlett Wood

January 2, 1913 - September 29, 2022

Ann was born in 1913 in Jerome, Arizona, a copper mining town where her father, Henry Gordon Woods, worked as a mechanic for the United Verde Mining Company. Her mother, Helen Genevieve Bartlett, had met her husband, an immigrant from Liverpool, England, at a dance at the Hotel Coronado in San Diego three years before. Helen came from a family with a background in education in Ohio and Kansas. She had a teaching credential. Ann was the oldest of six siblings, with all of them, except Ann, living into their 90’s. In 1920, the family moved to Lomita, California, in Los Angeles County. Ann graduated from Nathaniel Narbonne High School in Lomita and attended UCLA for one year. The following year she transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in Anthropology, studying under famed Anthropologist Theodor Kroeber. While at Berkeley, she met her future husband, August Roland Wood, who received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Berkeley in 1931, and an ROTC commission in the US Army Reserve.

Ann and Roland married in 1934 and lived in Oakland for several years, purchasing a new home on Crown Avenue in the hills above Montclair in 1938. When World War II was on the horizon, the couple moved to Carmel as Roland was called to active duty in the Army and assigned to Fort Ord near Monterey. They subsequently moved to Pasadena, California, and San Antonio, Texas, as the war progressed. When Roland went to England with the 9th US Army in 1944, Ann returned to Oakland, driving across the country in a Ford car with baby son Stephen in the back seat. Roland, now a Lieutenant Colonel in the Ordinance Corps, continued over the beaches of Normandy and on to the Netherlands and Germany as a member of the Headquarters Staff of the 9th US Army.

Roland returned to active duty in 1947 and was assigned to serve with the Air Force in Guam. Ann stayed in the family home in the Oakland hills and looked after son Stephen and daughter Barbara until Roland returned in 1949. The Army relocated the family to Minneapolis, Minnesota (1949-1954), then Frankfurt, Germany (1954-1956), Benicia, California (1956-1957), and finally, El Paso, Texas (1957-1963). When Roland retired from the Army in 1963, the couple returned to California and purchased a home in Lafayette. Son Stephen and daughter Barbara were attending UC Berkeley at the time. Ann was very active with the local Military Officers’ Wives Club and loved to play bridge.

Roland passed away in 1981, and Ann soon began an aggressive overseas travel itinerary. She went on extensive trips to Russia, China, New Zealand, Egypt, the United Kingdom, Spain, and many other places. In 2001, at age 88, she made a trip to visit son Stephen and his wife Donna, who were on a work assignment in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Ann was always a very determined individual, with strong opinions and a commitment to get things done. Over her incredible 109 years, she lived a very full and meaningful life.