Ann Carlene Vandeventer Harper

Ann Carlene Vandeventer Harper was born to on September 2, 1951, to Billy Doyle Vandeventer and Mayda Marita (“Rita”) Vandeventer. She was born at the 97th General Hospital, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where her father was stationed as a Sergeant in the US Army. She died on January 17, 2022.

Ann graduated from Roosevelt High School in San Antonio, TX, in 1969 and attended Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Science Education in 1973. Ann had a great passion for both learning and teaching, actively doing both throughout her life. She began her teaching career in 1973 in San Antonio’s East Central School Independent District. In 1976, she returned to Southwest Texas State to earn her Master’s in Biology (Aquatic Biology). In 1979, she followed her love of science to research positions at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio (UTHSCSA), first in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, then Microbiology, and finally in the Department of Medicine. In 1984, she returned to school, becoming a licensed vocational nurse at Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital Emergency Room in San Antonio before going on to earn her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from UTHSCSA in 1986. Ann met her husband, Michael Harper, a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UTHSCSA in 1982. They married in February 1985 and were together 37 years. Michael passed away 11 days after Ann on January 28, 2022.

Ann returned to her passion for classroom teaching in 1995 in the Fort Bend Independent School district in Houston, TX, teaching at Dulles Middle School, Clements and Kemper High Schools, and St. Francis Episcopal Day School. In 2012, she started as a Science Lab Technician at the Awty International School in Houston where she spent the next 7 years as a beloved member of the Science Department. Ann was a strong advocate for her students, and throughout her career, she was the faculty sponsor for many student groups including the Muslim Students Association, Teachers as Mentors, the Beta Club, the National Honor Society, and even the Rodeo Club. Ann loved being a teacher and being able to educate future generations, refusing to retire, and working in education for as long as her health would allow.

Ann was smart, funny, beautiful, and incredibly generous, always giving to those around her and those in need. She loved the ocean and would have been happy to spend all her time on the Texas Coast. There was not a sea or land creature that she could not identify or was not eager to learn about. Her favorite trips were ones involving the ocean, wildlife, or bird sanctuaries. She also loved flowers and plants and spent many hours gardening as well as tending to her box turtle, Tortie. Ann was enormously artistic, loving bright colors and glamorous designs and bringing her talents to parties, decorating, and her crafts and sewing. She was also known for her dancing and performed as a Strutter at Southwest Texas State, skills that she would use to win the Miss San Antonio pageant in 1972 and represent the city at the Miss Texas pageant.

Ann had a great love of family, and at a young age she would listen to stories from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others who would share stories of the past. As a teenager, she wrote these stories down to carefully catalogue them for future generations. Ann’s daughter, Helen, was the absolute light of her life and provided her with much love and support in her final years. Ann was also a loving caregiver and later guardian to her younger brother, George Galen, who was born with encephalitis and preceded her in death 15 years ago as well as primary caregiver for her father, Billy Vandeventer, who died of melanoma cancer in 2007. Ann is survived by her daughter Helen Harper and Michael’s children (Charlotte, Tristram, and Felicity Kennedy Harper), her cousins, her best friend of 50 years Jill Morgan, and many people who loved and knew her throughout her life.

A celebration of life for Ann will be held Saturday, 10:00 am, June 18, 2022 at The Settegast-Kopf Company at Sugar Creek, 15015 Southwest Fwy, Sugar Land, Texas 77478.

If you plan to attend, we would like to ask you to wear bright and cheerful colors in lieu of black. She dearly loved color – the brighter the better.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition (twrcwildlifecenter.org) or the Texas Sealife Center in Corpus Christi (texassealifecenter.org).