Ann Marie Kiest

Ann Kiest celebrated her 90th birthday in November with her family and friends, enjoying a weekend filled with laughter, good food and fond memories. Neighbors gathered at her front door to sing Happy Birthday, joined by a UPS driver who had stopped to make a delivery.

It was a joyful celebration that also, as it turned out, would serve as a last hurrah for a long and happy life.

Once again surrounded by family, Ann died on February 7 following a brief illness.

Ann Marie Leavitt Kiest was born on November 20, 1933, in Litchfield, Illinois, to Don and Ellen Leavitt. After moving around to several cities and towns as a child because of the demands of her father’s job, the family settled in Denver, where Ann graduated from East High School. She attended Loretto Heights College in Denver and the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

After college, she went to work as an assistant engineer at AT&T in Kansas City, where she met her future husband, Jack. They got married and raised three children who were born in a span of five years. Ann embraced the kind of family life that could provide scenes for a nostalgic movie montage: Camp Fire Girls, PTA meetings, CCD classes on Sunday, birthday parties, tuna casseroles and school lunches for the kids, but also bowling leagues, dinner parties, vacations in the Ozarks and season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs.

The family moved to San Antonio in 1975 when Jack was transferred by AT&T. When her children were older, Ann started working part-time for the Bexar County Elections Department, helping process voter registrations and absentee ballots. She also volunteered for Christian Assistance Ministry and delivered communion to people who couldn’t leave their homes. She took up painting – a dozen of her still-lifes hang in the rec room of her home -- and took cruises with Jack to the Canadian Rockies, the Panama Canal and St. Petersburg, Russia, among other destinations.

In later years, her activities were limited somewhat by arthritis and macular degeneration, but she lived an independent and engaged life until the end. She was a longtime member of the Holy Spirit Altar Society and a lifelong bridge player. She played every other Thursday with one group of cherished friends for more than 40 years.

She also knitted, listened to mysteries by Michael Connelly and M.C. Beaton, and watched “Jeopardy” every day.

And she connected with people wherever she met them: VIAtrans drivers, parishioners leaving Mass on Sunday, appliance repairmen, grocery store shoppers who helped her reach an item on a high shelf. She wanted to know their names, listened to their stories and genuinely cared about their lives. She couldn’t see faces clearly, but she saw the good in everyone. She truly never met a stranger.

Ann was preceded in death by a newborn son, Robert Scott; her husband of 53 years, Jack Kiest; and her son-in-law, Brian Cooper. She is survived by her brother, David Leavitt, sister, Mary Lou Enna, and their families; her children Cindy Cooper, John Kiest (Rebecca) and Jim Kiest (Helen); and her grandchildren, David and Steven Cooper, Kara, Carson and Christian Kiest, Seth and Noah Carver and Chloe Kiest.

VISITATIONMONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 20246:00 PMPORTER LORING MORTUARY NORTH2102 NORTH LOOP 1604 EASTROSARY TO FOLLOW

MASSTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 202410:00 AMHOLY SPIRIT CATHOLIC CHURCH8134 BLANCO ROAD

Interment will follow in Holy Cross Cemetery, 17501 Nacogdoches Road.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Low Vision Resource Center and the Christian Assistance Ministry.