Ann Theresa Fornatora Kern

Ann was born in Long Island, New York to her Canadian mom, Tess, who was born in Toronto, and her blue eyed dad, Paschal, a native Italian. Ann was the youngest of six children, all of whom had unique talents and ultimately remarkable accomplishments – inventors, entrepreneurs, a detective, bookkeepers and tax specialists. She attended Julia Richmond High School on the upper East side of Manhattan where she did well in school and won awards in fashion design and Spanish. She loved basketball, sledding, playing piano by ear and riding her horse in Central Park with her cousin. Ann learned to cook from her mom and dad, who made fresh pasta and traditional veal dishes for holiday dinners, and peaches soaked in homemade wine in the summer. Ann grew up with large gatherings of family and friends at her home, and she continued the traditions all of her life.

Ann was taught generosity of heart. Ann helped her mom feed and find housing and jobs for families less fortunate than theirs. Her mother Tess would shake the hands of those she helped with $20 in her palm. As a teenager, Ann was president of her church club and active in her community. Ann attended Hunter College in New York as a journalism major. She quit her studies when her mom took sick with heart failure. When Tess died, three hearses were needed just to carry the flowers, and so many attended her funeral that people had to stand outside the church. Ann’s dad studied architecture and was a master craftsman with a team of artisans who built the gilt-plastered ceilings, columns and ornamental architectural elements for what are now historical landmarks, including the New York Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria Hotels. He was also chosen to restore President Teddy Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill home and the Ellis Island Immigration Center.

Ann was a pretty and popular woman, and decided to marry a handsome young man named Jack Kern, her brother’s best friend. They married on a sunny and warm day, January 27, 1945, in St. Paschal’s Baylon Church in St. Albans, New York. Her favorite wedding songs were Ave Maria and Stardust. Jack and Ann then cruised to Central America, and honeymooned in Guatemala, where they attended festivals in native villages.

They then settled in the Panama Canal Zone, living next to General Patton’s daughter. Shortly after arriving there, Ann and Jack went to Panama City to purchase bread from a special bakery for a dinner, and came out to find their car surrounded by gun-wielding revolutionaries. Police helped them escape but, undaunted, Ann learned to drive a stick shift in the alleys of Panama City. When she passed her driving test all her neighbors came out to cheer the brave American girl. Ann loved to sail the Canal locks with Jack, and their two small children, Jack, Jr. and Linda. Ann’s backyard was a jungle full of wild poinsettia trees, and she fought off a giant sloth in her house more than once (which may be one reason why the house was built on stilts). Ann tried hard to change the policies on the base preventing people of color from using the PX.

Ann and Jack moved the family to Long Island when Jack, Jr. and Linda were still young. Ann lived in the same house in Albertson with Jack for 65 years. Ann, who was a great cook, hosted big Sunday dinners for family and friends, serving the best cheesecakes and pies you ever tasted. In the summer she made picnic lunches and enjoyed parades and fireworks at nearby Long Island beaches and old whaling harbors. When not entertaining on weekends, Ann and Jack enjoyed watching 60 Minutes and the Honeymooners on T.V. Ann started the first Girl Scout Troop in the area, was a major fundraiser for her church, St. Aidan’s, and also helped found the local library. She helped raise her nephew and niece when their mom took sick, and was always there with dinners when friends and neighbors needed help. Her favorite quote was one from her own mom: “To have friends, you need to be one.”

When her kids left home Ann became a correspondence manager for Black’s Publishing Company in Roslyn, New York. She retired when her three grandchildren were born so she could visit them in California – every year until she was 94 – and when back in New York she would send them homemade butter cookies, each one wrapped individually in saran wrap so they wouldn’t break in the mail.

At 94, Ann had to make the toughest choice of her life. Fiercely loyal to Jack, she gathered her courage and moved out of the home where she had lived for over six decades, and left behind friends she had known for a lifetime, to travel across the country to the Mary Health of the Sick Center here in the Conejo Valley so Jack could receive the care he needed, and be near Linda’s family.

Even in her late nineties she composed beautiful letters to her friends, written in her flawless handwriting. With her eye for fashion, staff at Mary Health would ask for her opinion about their outfits. A week before she passed, Ann was visited by nursing students on their last day of clinical training. They told her she was their favorite resident, sweet and full of humor. The day she passed she told her nurses and aides she loved them. In her final hour, they, the maintenance crew and the staff cried. She died with the same dignity that she lived every day of her life.

Ann was named after her great grandmother. Ann means “grace.” She became my true, honest and best friend. She rocked me to sleep when I was young, and became the rock of my life and the heart of my life’s story. Ann passed the torch of what she lived for and loved – loyalty, family, friendship and a good sense of humor – to her children and three grandchildren. We all take great pride in those gifts, and will never forget her. One of us will be making her cheesecake and cookies soon…