Anne Elizabeth Brockington

Anne Elizabeth Brockington, a resident of Columbia, SC, passed away peacefully on August 23, 2024. Anne was a loving and caring wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was a Korean War Era veteran, serving in the Army Nurse Corps from May 21, 1953 - October 22, 1955, at Fort Campbell, KY, and at the US Army 2d Field Hospital in West Germany. She was a proud member of The American Legion, Richland Post 6. She was a devout Catholic and a member of Saint John Neumann Catholic Church in Columbia, SC. She will be deeply missed by all who knew her.

Anne was born in Philadelphia, PA, on September 6, 1930, to the late Hugh O'Donnell and Alice McDermott O'Donnell. She was raised in a large Irish-Catholic family in a working class neighborhood of Philadelphia. She graduated from Little Flower Catholic High School in 1948 and from the Roxborough Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1951. She received the award for the highest grade and the Balfour Award as the Best All Around Nurse in her Nursing class. She was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps on May 21, 1953, and promoted to First Lieutenant on November 21, 1954. Anne met her husband, Lieutenant Colonel (US Army Retired) John Scriven Brockington, at Fort Campbell, KY, on a blind date. They were married on January 15, 1955, in Montgomery County, TN. Anne was a proud military wife, serving with her husband during an Army career that took them all over the United States and to Munich, Germany, Madrid, Spain, and La Paz, Bolivia, before retirement in John's hometown of Columbia, SC. Anne and John had four children, John III (Kibby), Gwendolyn, Mary Ellen, and Gary, and five grandchildren, John IV (Brock), Patrick, Paul, Stephen, and Laura Anne. Anne tended to others as a volunteer nurse on many occasions during John's Army career. She was especially proud of tending to the poor in Bolivia, while accompanying the local parish priests to remote areas of the country.

Anne had a keen intellect and a competitive nature. She enjoyed traveling and loved games, especially Bridge and Scrabble, crosswords, and reading. Anne helped raise her grandson, Brock, and during her later years relished watching his two daughters, Mia and Marley, grow up. She loved the beach and spent a great deal of time at Ocean Isle Beach, NC, with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and two cherished nieces, Eileen and Mary Beth.

In addition to her parents, Anne is preceded in death by her sisters, Eileen White (late James) and Alice Clerkin (late Thomas), and her brothers, Hugh and Robert O'Donnell. She is survived by her devoted husband, John, her son Kibby and his wife Trena, her daughter Gwendolyn Sawyer and her husband Mark, her daughter Mary Ellen, and her son Gary and his wife Belinda. She is also survived by her brother Richard O'Donnell and his wife Janice, her sister-in-law Marilyn O'Donnell (late Hugh), her grandchildren, Brock and his wife Christine, Patrick, Paul, Stephen, and Laura, and her great-grandchildren, Mia and Marley.

A Funeral Mass will he held at Saint John Neumann Catholic Church on Tuesday, September 3, at 10:00 a.m. Anne will be buried in the Fort Jackson National Cemetery at 12 p.m. following the Funeral Mass.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers a donation be made in memory of Anne Elizabeth Brockington to the Fisher House, fisherhouse.org.