Anne “Punky” Talbott
February 6, 1946 - June 3, 2015
Anne “Punky” Talbott, 69, passed away peacefully and surrounded by family on June 3, 2015 following a thankfully-short battle with cancer. Punky was a longtime resident of Palo Alto.
Punky was the eldest of four children, born February 6, 1946 to Rose (Macartney) and Denis Babson in New Orleans. As a child she was primarily raised on a farm near Klamath Falls, Oregon before the family moved to Palo Alto where Punky attended Palo Alto High School, graduating in the class of 1964. She went on to attend Smith College in Massachusetts before transferring to and graduating from the University of California, Berkeley. After college Punky returned to Palo Alto where she met and married Robert Talbott in 1972. They were married for 43 years.
Punky’s interests, in order of obsession, were her grandchildren, travel, bridge, photography, piano and tennis. Punky was involved in the restaurant business for many years and served as the manager of the Foothills Tennis and Swimming Club in Palo Alto for ten years. She spent many years taking landscape and architecture photographs and attending lessons in classical piano. She was a competitive bridge player, traveling to regional tournaments and playing in weekly games. Punky and her husband Bob loved exploring the world and spent much of their free time traveling abroad, including a year spent living in Europe. In recent years, Punky was blissfully devoted to her young grandchildren and could be found performing somersaults in the backyard and cheering alongside them for the Giants. Punky had a deep love of the ocean, her family and friends, Christmas celebrations, and her quirky cats.
Punky was preceded in death by her parents and younger brother, Stephen Babson. She is survived by her husband Robert, son Brian, daughter-in-law Natalie, grandchildren Madeline and Connor, and sisters Marcia Barthelow and Joan Moeller and their families Michael, Sarah, and Katie Barthelow and Reno and Alena Moeller. A memorial gathering will be held at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto on Saturday, June 27th at 2:00.