Roxanne "Roxie" Sheila Abrams-Cancel

Roxanne (“Roxie” or "Rox") Sheila Abrams Cancel was born on March 18, 1951 in Oakland, California to parents Morris Abrams and Shirley Kramer Abrams. She was the younger of two children; her older brother Howard was the apple of her eye and always looked out for her, and she for him. When she was a young girl, their family relocated a short distance away from Oakland to San Leandro, where Roxie spent the rest of her youth. She loved school and loved socializing with her friends – so she gravitated towards cheerleading at Marina High School, where she graduated in 1969. After high school, she attended Chico State University and upon graduation she followed her brother Howard to Europe where she spent the next year traveling, working, and opening her eyes to a greater world than the one she’d previously known.

When she returned to the United States, Roxie had a long and distinguished career as a counselor at the California Women’s Facility in Stockton, California. Stockton is also where she settled down with her beloved husband Tony, whom she met in 1979, started dating in 1980 and married on Valentine’s Day in 1988. Five years later, they both took early retirement packages from the State of California and bought a condominium in Hawaii, in a special area of Maui called Kihei. Roxie’s warm personality and inquisitive nature made her a local hit immediately and she made lifelong friendships in the seven and a half years she and Tony spent living “the island life.”

Looking for a new adventure, and yearning to be closer to Tony’s brother Hilton and his wife Kate, Rox and Tony moved to Cary, North Carolina in 2001. They bought a house on Moravia Lane where they would live the rest of their lives and where she would once again form unbreakable bonds with her neighbors and her community. She helped start a neighborhood book club that just celebrated its nineteenth year and also spent time pursuing a hobby that would become a passion: genealogy. Her curious mind and attention to detail served her well in this endeavor and before long, as friends learned what she was up to in her home office day after day, she began helping them learn about their roots as well, and soon after she joined The Triangle Jewish Genealogy Society, serving as its secretary.

Roxie’s greatest love was her family, and her greatest heartbreak was losing members of her family. She and Tony were together for nearly forty-two years. They enjoyed dancing, cooking and traveling together, taking cruises to Italy and Russia in recent years. Roxie cared for him in his final months and brought him much love and comfort, just as she always did, before his passing in July of 2022.

Roxie leaves behind her step-children Raelynn, Adam, Christopher and Carrie, her nieces and nephews; their children, her sisters and brothers-in-law, cousins and countless friends and neighbors whom she also considered “family.” No Halloween was complete without a visit to see “Miss Rox” as she would have special homemade treats and her infectious smile waiting for the neighborhood children when they knocked on her door. And let’s not forget her infamous dozens of Christmas cookies that her and Tony shared every year with family and friends, and even delivered to the local fire station.

Roxie will be remembered by those who knew her for her generous spirit, bellowing laugh, her direct but always caring nature and perhaps most of all, her ability to invite people into her world and heart and in turn to be invited into theirs. She loved. And she was loved. We will miss her.

If you would like to honor Roxie, please consider donating to the Jewish Genealogy Society in her name. You know how much she loved Genealogy and at one time was Secretary of the Triangle Jewish Genealogical Society. Here is the link: https://www.jewishgen.org/jewishgen-erosity/Honors/