Anne Styles Overbeck

By Eileen McIntyre and Roy Harris

As close friends and neighbors of Anne Styles Overbeck in Hingham, Mass., we have been touched by her life in many ways. In the days since her death in Florida, we’ve talked with Overbeck family members, and Anne’s friends in Siesta Key and in Hingham. Preparing these reflections about Anne has allowed us to relive wonderful times, and learn even more about this amazing woman.

Anne died on June 3, at 85. A June 27 service is planned at St. Boniface Episcopal Church in Siesta Key. Services in Hingham will follow later this summer.

As a two-year-old in Pearl Harbor, Anne experienced a startling brush with history. Her father, Ralph Emerson Styles, was stationed in Hawaii as a Navy submarine captain. As recounted by her youngest son Mike, Ann and her dad, and mother, Elizabeth Walton Styles, were in their home, overlooking the Naval base, when the bombs fell on Dec. 7, 1941. Anne’s mother, Mike’s grandmother, once told Mike how a piece of shrapnel had shot through the window, and the curious toddler, Anne, touched it, exclaiming, “HOT!”

Anne’s dad was called from the base to get to his sub, the USS Narwhal, and be ready to take it out of the harbor, as soon as the bombs stopped falling. It would be weeks before mother and child knew if he was safe. (He was.) Communication (by letter) in the following months was limited. Anne and her mom, as civilians, would soon need to leave Hawaii for the duration of the war. Anne’s mom fended for herself while watching over her little one—hardly easy in those days when military “family services” programs did not yet exist.

As we heard in a 2017 StoryCorps oral history Anne recorded with Eileen, Anne’s mom worried for their safety during the war years. But it was also clear that, as a youngster, Anne already was learning lessons of problem-solving and resiliency—lessons that would continue as her dad’s post-war Navy career required frequent family relocations. With those moves, and schooling in a variety of places for Anne and her sister Linda, born after the war, came life lessons about making friends quickly, and adjusting to new environments.

Anne would take that adaptability into her adult life. She met and later married Jim Overbeck — a physicist, engineer and inventor — when she was working in an office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught. She soon became a busy mom to three sons. Much later, she would thrive as an active, independent senior in Hingham, with a love of travel that ran deep.

Reflecting on his mom as a traveler, son Mike shared: “When my brothers were off in college, there were some road trips with just me and my mom. I remember one trip, after my grandmother died. Grandpa gave his car to us, so we flew down to Florida to get it, and drove it back up to Hingham. We had stops in North Carolina to see some of mom’s Styles cousins, and we toured Washington, D.C., and saw all the monuments and the Smithsonian Museum and zoo together. We made a good traveling team.”

Several years after the 2009 death of Anne’s husband of four decades, she traveled to Tokyo alone, to surprise eldest son James Jr., who lives there. When Anne told us of that trip, Eileen, who once went to Yokohama on business, was impressed that Anne, in her 70s, had easily negotiated Japan’s busy train system. Perhaps James, who knew his mom as an adventurer, was only mildly surprised when she buzzed his intercom to announce her unexpected visit.

Says Anne’s middle son, Ryan: “She really threw herself into being a mom. Lots of creative activities, arts and crafts, pretend, hand-made Halloween costumes. And joining us, and often a gang of neighborhood children, for games, or sledding down the hill in front of our house in winter. Together we explored the yard, the neighborhood, and World’s End, the nature preserve nearby.” Anne also spent years as a Cub Scout troop leader, and with Hingham’s Foster School PTA. Ryan feels fortunate to have witnessed “Grannie Annie” interacting with his own young children.

In Siesta Key, where Anne spent more time after Jim died, she became a trained healing minister as part of The Healing Mission, an outreach prayer ministry of St. Boniface Episcopal Church. Cynthia Sand, director of the Mission, said, “Anne had a wide-open loving heart. It was a privilege to pray with her.”

Diane Erne knew Anne when both lived at the Whispering Sands condominiums. Diane remembers her as always helpful to older seniors in the complex, and staying active in issues impacting the community. For seven years, Diane told us, Anne was involved with “Save Our Siesta Key II,” a campaign involving a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers—with residents seeking to protect the area and its beach from dredging of the shoal that protects the Key. The campaign didn’t succeed, but Anne’s determination and fighting spirit—perhaps inspired by her dad’s legacy of community involvement—will not be forgotten, Diane says.

In both Massachusetts and Florida, Anne’s friends marveled at her inquisitiveness—and readiness to learn new things. Says Hingham neighbor Wayne Eckerson, who lives on her street, and is a parishioner at Anne’s Hingham church, St. John’s Episcopal: “One thing I loved about Anne was her curiosity, including her interest in spiritual topics.” She joined three book groups Wayne led at the church. “She studied Zen Buddhism and meditation, among other things,” he adds. “She was a volunteer teacher of English as a second language. She learned about hypnotism, and water divining.” In all, he says, “Anne's interests and hobbies were many, and so varied!”

According to son Mike, who became a professional animator: ”My parents were always supportive of me and my constant tendency to draw. So I was delighted when my mother took up Chinese brush painting. She got really good! She had an innate sense of good composition.”

Also an excellent photographer, Anne created for the two of us in Hingham a beautiful photo book after we three took a Baltic cruise together in 2015.

A trained docent, as well, Anne gave Boston-area tours to cruise-travelers visiting the city. At the time of her death, she was serving as treasurer of the Greater Boston Tour Guides Association.

Anne was a caring sister to Linda, who died in 2014, and a great support to many others. Ryan told us about some families Anne helped over the years—including immigrants who’d come from the former Soviet Union, and from the Middle East. Anne helped get them set up, including providing English lessons.

“She was a person who felt strongly for people in hard situations, and worked hard to help,” Ryan said. One who got a large measure of Anne’s loving attention was her friend Carol McPherson, whom she had met when they were both students at Pennsylvania’s Westminster College. Carol adopted three orphaned girls from India, and Anne was a devoted godmother to one of them. Later, Anne helped Carol herself get the care she needed, as Carol declined with Alzheimer’s disease.

Anne also participated in volunteer service projects in Southern Africa and China.

In a note to his St. John’s Hingham congregation, Rev. Ed Thornley quoted a parishioner who said: “Everyone who knew Anne will attest that she was a gentle soul with a heart of gold.”

We will keep her in our hearts, where she will continue to inspire us.

--Eileen McIntyre and Roy Harris are a retired couple who have been neighbors and friends of the Overbeck family for more than 20 years.

A memorial service will be held at 10:00 AM on Friday, June 27th at St. Boniface Episcopal Church, 5615 Midnight Pass Road, Sarasota FL 34242

PHOTO CAPTION:

Anne Overbeck, in 2017, standing at the plaque honoring her dad, Ralph Emerson Styles, in Siesta Key.