Obituary of Orie Anna App

Orie Anna Hall App passed away quietly on the evening of February 1st, 2014. She was surrounded by family, at her side, holding her hand, right up to the end. She is survived by her husband of sixty-four years, her four sons, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Born in South Carolina on April 20 of 1927, she was named after her mother, Orie Walpole Hall, but to those close to her she was always Ann. She was the oldest of three children, and from her stories, something of a ring-leader when it came to mischief. They were a family of means at the time of her birth, before the Great Depression. Though just two years old when the crash of '29 occurred, growing up in her family she could sense that something had been lost. Ann spent most of her childhood in Virginia, not far from Washington, D.C. Shortly after high school she was married to Roy Cook, and had her first child, Richard, in 1947. Her marriage to Roy was not to last, though, and she found herself a single mother. It was while she was working at the Department of Agriculture that she met Casper Joseph (Joe) App, an engineering student at Catholic University of America in D.C. On their first date she went to meet him at a cocktail lounge across the street from the Wardman Park Hotel. Ann was never much of a drinker, and she nearly changed her mind about the whole thing when she walked in and spotted her date dropping a shot of whiskey in his beer. Fortunately for several generations of descendants, she did not; and the story of their first date became a favorite of hers. You could always expect to hear Joe add "We called that drink a depth-charge…" any time she told it. They were married in November of 1950. The newly married couple began their adventures with a move to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Joe accepted his first job after graduation. Ann's second son, James (Jim), was born in November of 1951. Their journey was just beginning. In June of 1954 they headed west, to Phoenix, Arizona. They lived in Phoenix for six years, but another move west was to come in January of 1961, this time to Newport Beach, California. Newport Beach was a different world for Ann, Joe and the boys. Though they would eventually move inland a bit, they lived right on the beach, or within a few blocks of it, for much of the next thirteen years. It was a life filled with picnics and beach parties, friendly neighbors, and new friends. The whole group would look back on those years as something of an idyllic time. Ann's youngest brother, Lee Hall, who had spent some time with them in Phoenix, lived with them for a couple of years in Newport Beach, and both Richard and Jim finished high school at Newport Harbor High. An unexpected twist was in store for the almost-empty-nesters, though. Ann was pregnant again. In the summer of 1970, she gave birth, at the age of forty-three, to twin sons (another unexpected twist), Christopher and Kevin. She was supposed to be at an Independence Day beach party that day. Their little beach house was going to be too small. With their two older boys grown up and moved out, Ann and Joe moved inland a few miles, to Costa Mesa, in 1972. In 1974 they settled into the house where they stayed for the next sixteen years, and finished raising their second round of children. Ann was always friendly and outgoing. She had the ability to make others feel interesting and special. Spending time with friends was one of her greatest joys throughout her life, whether it was just going to lunch with the girls or hosting a Bunco-night. Ann always got plenty of attention from men too, but it didn't seem to cause the kind of friction in her marriage with Joe that sometimes comes with having a pretty wife. Ann once reflected that Joe never got jealous, but rather seemed to see an advantage in the effect she had on other men. They seemed to be willing to do things for her happily, and so getting good service from just about everybody was a fringe benefit. She was also an avid reader. She loved a good spy story or a mystery, and was known to sit down and consume a novel in an afternoon. Her reading speed was so fast it led her boys to give her a speed and retention test once to see if she was really just skimming all of those books, only to discover that she wasn't missing anything, and she really did read at a virtually super-human clip. She raised four sons over four decades; a professional mom by any measure. She probably would have enjoyed having a daughter, but she made up for it by stealing away any female her boys brought home. She was so personable that she always put them at ease right away. Before you knew it you were watching two gals deep in conversation like old friends, even though one was sixty and the other sixteen. They all loved her. As Ann and Joe were raising their younger boys, the older boys began having kids of their own. Ann became a grandmother in 1979 (only nine years after giving birth herself), and soon she had a whole pack of grandchildren. There was one more adventure left, though. By 1990 her youngest boys were grown, and there was a job that was too good to pass up in Scotts Valley, California. So, the (finally) empty-nesters packed up one more time to head north. They spent a couple of years living near the beach in Santa Cruz before finally settling into the house in Scotts Valley where Ann would live the rest of her life. As usual, Ann quickly made some very good friends. Ann would grow old in the house in Montevalle, but not before enjoying some good years and making memories in their new home. It would become the house that she lived in longer than any other; twenty-two years, and it came to feel like home even to the family who only ever came there to visit. Ann was healthy and active for seventy years before heart problems began to slow her down in the late 1990s. The last few years were particularly hard on her, and her family. She suffered from dementia, and slowly, one by one, she lost the ability to enjoy the things she had always loved to do. In spite of everything, her mischievous streak could not be defeated, and she was known to sneak off and wipe out an entire box of Eskimo Pies undetected, even though she had a very hard time getting around. It was especially difficult for her family to watch the wife and mother who had always been so strong and healthy withering away. They all thought of her as the woman who personified the notion that moms never get sick. Right up to the end, her strength and strong-willed nature surprised the doctors again and again, as she pulled through when no one expected her to. On March 2, a graveside service was held for her on the grounds of Santa Cruz Memorial's Oakwood Chapel, followed by a memorial at the lodge in Montevalle. Four generations of Apps, Cooks, and Halls, along with the good friends that she made over the years at Montevalle, gathered to remember their beloved mother, sister, wife, grandmother, aunt, and friend. She would have loved it.