Anne Elizabeth Oaks

Anne Elizabeth Crane Oaks, 93, of Sugar Land, Texas, passed away February 1, 2013. She was born February 23, 1919, in Sabinal, Texas, the daughter of Brosie and Mable Bell Crane. Anne married Fred Richard Oaks on July 30, 1949, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Anne was valedictorian of her graduating class at Sabinal High School in Sabinal, Texas. She graduated from UTMB Galveston as a registered nurse in 1938 before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1941. While in the Army, she was a nurse on the hospital ship, “Larkspur,” returning wounded U.S. soldiers and POWs to the U.S. Among other commendations, she received the American Defense Ribbon and EAME Medal for her participation in the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign and was discharged as First Lieutenant in 1945. She demonstrated extraordinary compassion during this time, as she cared for both Allies and prisoners with equal tenderness. It was during her military service that she converted to Roman Catholicism having repeatedly witnessed the profound serenity brought about by the administering of the last rites of Catholicism which she felt it gave the dying greater peace.

After leaving the Army, she received a BS in Public Health Nursing from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. In 1949 she began to raise her family and continued to accumulate a close and loving body of friends. Though technically a mother of three, she acted as a willing and loving mother figure for countless others.

Anne savored life and lived each day with great enthusiasm. She and her husband loved to swing dance and did so with such exuberance, they sometimes even enticed their children to join in. She practiced as a public health nurse after her husband passed away in 1971 until she retired in 1987.

She enjoyed literature, movies, and travel. She loved the beach and always dreamt of being a beachcomber. She was perennially kind and generous, and always charitable with her time and money to those in need, as well as accepting and nonjudgmental. Known for the extraordinary virtue of valuing people and ideas over materials, she had an immaculate reputation for showing love through her actions and working through life’s injustices without complaint, both for her own sake and for the sake of anyone who asked.

Anne is survived by her children, Lisa Pedersen and husband, Richard, of Bellingham, Washington, Charles Oaks and wife, Monique, of Allen, Texas, and Lori Bisewski and husband, Hans, of Sugar Land, Texas; grandchildren, AO2 Travis Oaks, U.S. Navy, and fiancée, Kyla Wade, of Jacksonville, Florida, Rachael Oaks Makowka and husband, Mitch, of Richardson, Texas, Hannah Bisewski of New York, New York, and Marc Bisewski of Austin, Texas; niece, Sylvia Crane of Houston, Texas; great-grandson, Clash Makowka; grandnieces, Austin and Annie Crane; and many other loving relatives and friends. She was preceded in death by her husband, Fred Oaks; her parents, Brosie and Mable Crane; and brother, Jeff Crane.

Special thanks to Jana Massey, Jane Wagenaar, and Jeni Scarborough along with the rest of the staff at Oyster Creek Manor, as well as Lisa Goodman with A-Med Community Hospice. The help and support given to Anne and her family was overwhelmingly generous.

Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, at 1 PM at the Houston National Cemetery, 10410 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, Texas 77038.