Alice Anna Reese

Alice Anna Reese, 85, of Columbia, Missouri departed on a final adventure Monday, September 15, 2025. Her funeral service will be 10am, Saturday, December 20th, at Calvary Episcopal Church, 123 S. Ninth St., Columbia, Missouri, 65201 .

Alice was born Alice Anna Wood on March 20, 1940 in Los Angeles, California to Gladys Marie (Persgard) Wood and Alexander Gordon Wood, Jr.. Alice loved to play outdoors, swimming, biking and playing games with her adored big brother, Gordon who was known as Splinter. In Girl Scouts she made lifelong friends at troop 1033. It was in girl scouts that she fell in love with singing, something she did for the rest of her life. In 1956 she was one of eight girls who attended the first ever Girl Scout Round-up in Michigan, traveling halfway across the country by train. She graduated from Susan Miller Dorsey High School in 1958. That summer she toured Europe attending many musical performances, including opera, which became a lifelong love.

In 1959 she met Blair Haynes at Occidental College and married him that same year. They had two children, Aimee and Laramee before they divorced in 1965. Alice graduated with a BA in English from UCLA in 1968 with a teaching certificate. That summer she traveled across Canada and settled in Prince Edward Island where she taught first grade. Two years later she returned to Los Angeles.

Fascinated by the theater and movies, Alice studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Hollywood, acting in a number of productions. To help support her acting career, she worked as a seamstress for Bobbie Mannix, sewing clothes for commercials. During this time she met her second husband, Garst Royston Reese. They were married on November 26, 1977 in Columbia, Missouri.

Garst had a dream of working in Africa to help alleviate hunger and improve farming methods. Alice made this her goal too and left her acting career to go back to school. She earned a BS in Agriculture (1980), and an MS in Dairy Science (1983) from the University of Missouri in Columbia. During this time she spent a year in tropical Mexico studying dairy cattle. She earned a PhD in Animal Nutrition (1988) from North Carolina State for her work with sheep in Indonesia. She worked in Mali, Africa before falling ill to a tropical disease and returning to the United States to recover.

After her recovery she and Garst relocated to Canada. They lived first in Edmonton, Alberta and then returned to Alice’s beloved Prince Edward Island. Over the next ten years they were part of the writers community in Charlottetown. As part of this community Alice wrote, published and edited numerous works by local authors. In 2002, they returned to the states, retiring in Columbia, MO. In retirement Alice was a docent at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, volunteered at the Boone County Historical Society, the Missouri Historical Society, sang in the Choral Union, volunteered for the True False film festival and was an active participant in the local writing community. She also had numerous memberships including the Jane Austen Society. It was during this time that she wrote and published an educational book, “Famous Missourians” for children. Alice was a lifelong scholar and traveler of the world: art, music, science, food, culture, history, she loved it all.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her brother and her husband. She is survived by her two children, Aimee Leonhard (Heinrich) and Laramee Haynes (Roberto) and her three step children, Stevan Reese (Loretta), Reese Reese (Myra) and Liz Clark (Clyde); eight grandchildren; Anna Witherbee, Mattheus Leonhard and Nicholas Leonhard; Jamie Brenner, Kiley Reese, Keara Reese, Clyde Spencer Clark and Julia Clark; five great grandchildren: Amelia and Violet Witherbee, Claire Brenner, Peter Brenner and Adam Brenner.

Memorial donations can be made to the Columbia Public Library;

By Mail: Please make checks payable to the Daniel Boone Regional Library Foundation and note “In memory of [Alice Anna Reese]" on the memo line.

Mail to: Daniel Boone Regional Library Foundation, P.O. Box 7113, Columbia, MO 65205

Online: Donations can be made at https://www.dbrl.org/giving. Please include “In memory of [Alice Anna Reese]” in the comments section.

Condolences and fond memories may be shared at www.memorialfuneralhomeandcemetery.com