Anna Anshel was born in NYC in the fall of 1909. She was brought back to Wilejka, Poland by her parents in 1912 until 1932 when she returned to the US. She met her husband Frank Heineman at the Central Park tennis courts in 1937. They married shortly thereafter. Frank was able to get Anna?s parents and brother out of Poland in 1938 but one younger sister and her husband and baby perished in the Holocaust. Anna and Frank had three daughters but Frank died 3 weeks before the youngest was born. Anna returned to school to become an RN and worked for 15 years as a Head Nurse on the Geriatric Unit of City Hospital at Elmhurst. She initiated new humane concepts that have since become the norm in geriatric care. After retiring and moving to West Hartford, she devotedly volunteered at the GHJCC for 23 years helping scores of immigrants learn English and become American citizens.At the age of 90, she began learning to read Torah and became Bat Mitzvah 92. She is survived by her children, Hattie Kaufman, Barbara Fertig and Francine Stier, grandchildren, Tammy Remais and Lee Greene, Michele and Mike Fisher, Peter and Kelly Fertig, Lisa and John Elmore, David and Jennifer A. Stier, Michael Stier, Jennifer E. Stier, 11 great grandchildren, a sister, Sylvia Green, a sister-in-law, Liliane Anshel and nieces, Dorothy Schwartz, Norma (and Michael) Bornstein and Michelle (and Greg) Ray.
We are profoundly grateful for the help of Anna?s primary caregiver for the past 8 months, Daji, and the Farmington Valley VNA Hospice Staff: Jodi. Kerry, Lorraine, Sue, Suzanne with special gratitude for the devotion of Alice.
Funeral Services today at 9:00 a.m. at Beth El Temple, 2626 Albany Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117 with burial in Clifton, New Jersey. Memorial contributions may be made to Beth El Temple, Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center, American Cancer Society, or Hartford Stage Company. Weinstein Mortuary has charge of the arrangements. For further information, directions, or to sign the guestbook for Anna, please visit online at www.weinsteinmortuary.com.
