Anne Mary Reno

Born on April 26, 1953, Anne (never “Annie”) died after a prolonged illness on September 1, 2025. Like everything else she did, Anne died on her own terms.

Anne loved books and classical music and dissecting the news. No subject was ever off limits. Like the rest of us, sometimes she said stupid things, and sometimes she said wise things. When she was being wise, she said things like, “When you try to read someone’s mind, you only prove that you’re illiterate.”

She loved the columnist Molly Ivins, who said, “You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to.” Anne was like that—she didn’t ignore anything, even when sometimes you wished she would.

She had a bit of a crush on former Texas governor Ann Richards as well but loved cats even more. In particular, she loved one cat above all others, a virtually feral cat named Cassandra, who hated the sight of the human face and wasn’t too shy to say so.

Anne was physically active until suddenly she wasn’t, riding her bike everywhere, going on long treks with her sister through Valley Green Park along the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, and lifting weights two hours a day. Monkeys worldwide envied her climbing skills.

Among her many accomplishments was bench pressing more than her own body weight and getting expelled from the Turkey Thicket Nursery School. Her climbing skills may or may not have been a factor in that last one.

Anne was preceded in death by her parents and one sister. She is survived by three sisters, one stepsister, a gaggle of nieces and nephews, and several lifelong friends, all of whom are trying to figure out what it means to get up in the morning in a world with no Anne, never Annie. She was loved.