Anne Smith Rodgers

Anne Smith Rodgers died Tuesday, November 17, 2015, lovingly surrounded by her husband John Rodgers, daughters Betsy Rodgers and Casey Fleming and son-in-law Ross Fleming. Born on September 10, 1944, the only child of Alan and AnnaRuth Smith, Anne grew up in picturesque Chappaqua, NY where she honed her tennis skills on the courts at Horace Greeley High School, the Mount Kisco Country Club and later Goucher College in Baltimore, retiring from the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association’s competitive circuit only after losing to Billy Jean Moffitt (later King). In 1965, prior to her senior year in college, she fortuitously chose to spend her summer as an exchange student with the Experiment in International Living during which she, eight other females and one John Rodgers from Texas A&M lived in Holland and later traveled as a group through Europe.

After college, Anne moved to New York City where she lived in a penthouse apartment on 86th St. and 3rd Ave. with her fashion model and flight attendant roommates who, she would joke, earned more in a day than she made in a month at her job as an editorial assistant under Jack Fisher and later Willie Morris at Harper’s Magazine. Her apartment during those years was a constant hub of activity as she and her roommates entertained a cast of characters, including Mickey Mantle and other Yankee teammates who lived down the hall. But despite her many suitors, Anne stayed in touch with John, who was then attending UT Law School in Austin. Although they saw each other only two times over the four years after their European summer, John knew he had found someone who only comes along once in a lifetime; so following law school, he drove up to NYC and proposed on the terrace of her apartment. They were married in Chappaqua almost 46 years ago on November 29, 1969. The newlyweds honeymooned across Canada to Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis where they lived for nine months before John, then a captain in the Army JAG Corps, was sent to Vietnam. Anne returned to NY and spent her days as a writer in the PR Dept. of American Can Co. and nights writing a letter to John every single day for the 12 months he was away. Following Vietnam, they were stationed for two years in Washington, D.C. where John completed his military service as a lawyer in the Army Surgeon General’s office and Anne refocused her creativity from writing to painting with works ranging from contemporary to landscapes (one, which won honorable mention in a Washington, D.C. art show, was of a Texas ranch she and John would own many years later).

In 1973, Anne left her East Coast roots and moved to Dallas where John had been recruited by The Southland Corporation (7-Eleven). Throughout his rise to General Counsel and then Chief Administrative Officer at 7-Eleven, and later as President at other local and national corporations, Anne supported him tremendously every step of the way and was as much a part of those companies as he was. After the birth of her daughters, Anne selflessly chose to dedicate herself to creating the best childhood possible for them, which not only included serving as a Brownie leader and on numerous parent committees at the Lamplighter and Hockaday Schools and Princeton University, and later serving with John as National Chairs of the Tulane University Parents’ Council, but also making sure she was home every single afternoon to greet her daughters when they came home from school to hear about their day, sending daily letters to both of them for the month they were away every summer at Anne’s childhood camp in Vermont, and making welcome home signs to hang throughout the house for every trip away. She infused their home with her signature warmth and a “windswept feeling”, as she would say, inspired by her favorite vacation destinations in the Caribbean where she frequently traveled with John and their daughters.

After her daughters completed their educations and moved to NYC, Anne shifted her energies to civic organizations, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra League (chairing the 1999 Presentation Ball), Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary (co-chairing the 2001 Celebrity Fashion Show Luncheon), both the national and local Boys & Girls Clubs of America (for whom she hosted numerous events for over 20 years), Perot Museum Founders Club, Dallas Museum of Art, Friends of WRR, and Women’s Council of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, among many others. She was also a member of the Mary K. Craig Class and she and John were members of the Dallas Dinner Dance Club and Knife and Fork Club.

Always smiling (even in her sleep), Anne had a vibrant zest for life and exuded a warmth towards family and friends that never faded. Her famous self-designed Christmas card was sent to over 1100 people each year, and she could give you a unique reason for including every name on the list. With Anne, candles were lit at every dinner for ambience, photographs commemorated every occasion large or small, life was celebrated at every opportunity, and mundane was not in her vocabulary. The depths to which she will be missed cannot be measured.

In addition to John, Betsy, Casey and Ross, she is survived by extended family and countless friends. A memorial service for Anne will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, at Christ the King Catholic Church, 8017 Preston Road, in Dallas. In lieu of flowers, her family requests that a contribution be made to either MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston or the Simmons Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center so that the breast, liver and bone cancer that took Anne’s life can be eradicated in the future.