Anni Heyer Obituary (1936

Anni Friedchen Margarethe Heyer passed away on October 20, 2024, at her home in Orem, Utah. Anni was born on August 18, 1936 in Hamburg, Germany, to parents Wilhelm and Ella. She had an older sister, Erika, two older brothers, Heinz and Reinhold, and a younger sister Eva. She spoke with fondness of pre-World War II Hamburg, situated on the Elbe River, with beautiful waterways, parks, and fountains. To understand who Anni was later in life, one needs to understand key childhood experiences that shaped her. Anni grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hamburg, during the Great Depression and World War II. Hamburg is one of Germany’s largest cities and an important seaport, and consequently Allied forces bombed Hamburg almost nightly for nearly 3 years in 1942-1945, when Anni was ages 6 through 8. During these years Anni’s family ran most nights through the streets of Hamburg’s Altona district to a bomb shelter near their apartment building, huddling together with neighbors and strangers, terrified in the darkness as war raged above them. On one night in 1943 just weeks before Anni’s 7th birthday, Hamburg was firebombed with incendiary bombs. The intense 1,400 degree heat created hurricane force winds over 150 miles per-hour and an oxygen vacuum that sucked away breathable air from residents who had not made it to underground shelter. The windswept firestorm ripped trees out by their roots and collapsed thousands of buildings. Twenty square miles of central Hamburg were engulfed in a raging inferno that burned for 9 full days. Over 46,000 Hamburg residents were killed in that single bombing raid. Miraculously, Anni’s family survived the 1943 inferno and hundreds of “normal” nightly bombing raids. Anni’s memories of such scenes, smells, and sounds, and the trauma she experienced from it, never diminished with time or distance from the events. Anni spent much of her childhood in bomb shelters by night, and scavenging food for her family among the rubble by day. Her mother, weakened by long-term illness, relied on Anni to go out into the city with their family’s life-sustaining food ration cards to search for any food items she could find and bring back to the family. This was a big responsibility for a young girl, but one that Anni embraced, and she threw herself into it with determined might. On one frightening night, as Anni’s family ran down the street toward the bomb shelter, her mother realized she had forgotten the small purse that contained the family’s meager food ration cards, their only potential source of food on the rare occasions any was available. Without hesitating, young Anni turned around and sprinted back to their apartment as bombs fell, retrieved the precious food ration cards, and began running back to her anxious mother. As she ran through the street, she saw a neighbor who also was trying to make his way to the shelter. At that moment, a bomb exploded a nearby building and Anni was thrown to the ground. As she got back to her feet to run to her mother, she looked for the neighbor man and saw him dead in the street. Anni and her family members suffered great physical malnutrition from food scarcity, and psychological trauma from witnessing such awful scenes of death and destruction. For the rest of her life Anni could not be in dark enclosed spaces, especially with the smell of damp cement, without triggering physical responses and shortness of breath from remembering her years in dark, damp, bomb shelters. Although the war in Europe ended in May 1945, a few months before Anni’s 9th birthday, the hunger, malnutrition, death, and trauma continued for Anni and her family. With most of Hamburg destroyed, food scarcity became even more accute and survivors became ever more desperate. One of the highlights from Anni’s childhood was a 1946 postwar visit to Hamburg from Elder Ezra Taft Benson, a newly-sustained member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who had been called to go to Europe and oversee the Church’s relief efforts. He administered spiritual and material relief to Church members, many of whom were on the verge of starvation. Elder Benson distributed 92 railway carloads of welfare supplies (about 2,000 tons) across war-ravaged Europe. These relief loads consisted of food, clothing, basic household items, and medical supplies that Church members in the United States and Canada had donated and shipped. Elder Benson described Hamburg’s devastation, “Somewhere in all the debris were thousands upon thousands of dead and many more thousands wounded." Recalling this experience, he wrote to his wife, "I'm so grateful you and the children can be spared the views of the terrible ravages of war. I fear I'll never be able to erase them from my memory.” (A Labor of Love, The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson) Elder Benson witnessed firsthand how desperate the food scarcity situation was in postwar Hamburg: …people along the road and ditch banks in the country who had walked for miles on Sunday to try and find a few dandelions or other herbs to take home for food. Some take ordinary grass and weeds and cut them up to mix with a little chicken feed and water, which is their meal. I noticed between meetings some would take out of their pocket a little cup partly filled with chicken feed or cereal and water which they would eat cold. This was their entire lunch. (A Labor of Love, The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson) During Elder Benson’s visit with Hamburg’s Church members, the children gave him flowers and Anni, who was almost 10 years-old, recited an original poem to him that Anni’s mother Ella had written. Elder Benson included Anni in his written account, “There were the largest numbers of children I have seen at any meeting in Germany. They very beautifully addressed their greetings to me and presented me with some lovely flowers, and one little girl gave an original poem. I’ve never seen lovelier children anywhere over here, although they were pale and thin.” (A Labor of Love, The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson) Elder Benson then asked the children to line up, and he handed treats to each of them. He gave them Wrigley’s chewing gum, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and Life Savers candies. Anni accepted these precious treasures from him. Elder Benson described this candy distribution: These sweet, eager but polite little ones almost broke my heart as they looked up with their large eyes and pale faces filled with gratitude. . . . Then I had all the mothers with babies come up, and I distributed a bar of soap to each and a few safety pins, needles, and thread, and an orange which we had coaxed from the US Army chief in Bremen. . . . These women hadn't seen an orange in six and one half years and hadn't had a bar of soap or any pins or needles for years. They couldn't hold back the `ahs' and `ahas' as they saw them and yet they were most polite. You could see they'd starved themselves to try to give to their children in the true mother spirit. I shall ever remember the scene of these sweet, innocent victims of the ravages of war - humble in their gratitude for the gospel, with no trace of enmity or hatred in their hearts. Surely when the Lord chooses the most faithful, these, His suffering children, will be among the most blessed. I shed tears with them, gave them what encouragement I could, and left my blessing and love with them. (A Labor of Love, The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson) Throughout Anni’s adult life, she had precious sticks of Wrigley’s chewing gum, Hershey’s chocolates, and Life Savers candy with her in her purse at all times, or at home in a little dish next to her rocking chair for easy reach. Meeting an Apostle of Jesus Christ was a life-shaping event for Anni. Already a faithful baptized Church member, she developed a strong and unshakeable testimony that Jesus Christ leads His church through prophets and apostles. She also had a lifelong gratitude for Elder Benson, who later served as Prophet and President of the Church from 1985 to 1994, and for the Church’s welfare program that helps Church members through hard times until they can become self-reliant again, and distributes humanitarian relief to people of all faiths worldwide. Throughout her life she consistently said that her faith in Christ, and the relief supplies the Church’s welfare aid program shipped to Europe, saved her life, as her family would have lost hope and starved to death without it. Later in life she served diligently in a variety of ward and stake food storage and emergency preparedness specialist callings, helping Church members prepare themselves for natural or man-made disasters, and to keep the church’s welfare and humanitarian aid supplies stocked and ready to distribute worldwide. Having survived war and gone hungry for much of her childhood, she was determined to do what she could to fight hunger everywhere. Those who knew Anni later in life noted her zeal for finding the deal, instinctively hunting every store for the best prices, especially for food. She knew many grocers and cashiers in Utah County by name and often got advance tips where and when the next good sale would happen. Her childhood responsibility scavenging and searching rubble-strewn Hamburg’s few remaining vendors for something food rations could buy for her family was the origin of her later deal-hunting and her particular enthusiasm for Utah’s food storage case-lot sales. During her teens she participated in a Church youth conference where she traveled to Denmark and joined Church youth from several countries. They shared their faith-building experiences, their testimonies of Christ, and feeling the spirit as they sang songs of praise to Jesus Christ together in their various native languages. She made life-long friendships during this youth conference. It was a beautiful spiritually formative experience for Anni that she spoke of throughout her life, seeing that there were faithful young people like her in many nations who shared beliefs and had made covenants to be disciples of Christ. In Anni’s late teens and into her early twenties, she worked as a dental hygienist in Hamburg to save up money to serve a Church mission when she turned 21. In 1958 and 1959, Anni served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in what was then the North German Mission. In the last year of her mission, she was assigned to provide leadership at a church youth conference in Bremen, Germany. The conference afforded her an opportunity to renew her acquaintance with a young man who had been a missionary in Hamburg a few years earlier, Terry Lee Heyer. He was on US Army furlough and had chosen to use that time to serve as a youth conference leader in Bremen. Anni and Terry corresponded regularly after this renewed friendship, and when Anni completed her mission service she married Terry on December 19, 1959, in the Bern Switzerland Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the temple, they were sealed together as husband and wife for time and all eternity, and their future children also would be sealed to them as a forever family. Anni and Terry lived in Berlin while he completed his US Army service, and then she immigrated to America. She spoke very little English, but began the lengthy naturalization process toward her goal of attaining US Citizenship. She learned much of her English from watching American TV and movies, particularly westerns. This might be where she picked up the semi-joking saying she used when someone would tease her about something, “you better number your bones, mister!” She practiced English with her father-in-law Kenneth Heyer, who spoke no German but sat patiently in his rocking chair with a German-English dictionary as they conversed. Anni always appreciated Terry’s parents and siblings for their kindness and patience, having never met Anni until she arrived in Los Angeles from Germany and welcoming her as their daughter-in-law and sister-in-law. Anni and Terry established their home in Inglewood, the Los Angeles suburb where Terry grew up. Anni attended civics classes, followed current events, studied the Constitution and other important pillars of American democracy, and developed a passion for all things American and a fierce patriotism that she espoused and defended for the rest of her life. She loved America, its history, its freedoms, its democratic system of government, and its vastness and beauty. She was deeply grateful for America’s sacrifices to free ordinary Germans, like Anni’s family, from Hitler and to rebuild after the destruction Hitler wrought upon the world and Germany itself. Anni had terrible memories of Germany’s descent into war and Naziism. Her family opposed what the Nazis were doing. As a young girl attending school for the first time, she entered the classroom and said "Good morning" to her teacher. The teacher slapped Anni hard in the face and said, "In my class we say Heil Hitler!" That night, the teacher scolded Anni's mother "for not teaching her properly." Three Church youth from her Hamburg ward were arrested and one executed for resistance activities against Hitler. Her uncle Hugo was playing cards with a small group of friends and commented that “Hitler is a criminal". The next morning the Gestapo took him and interred him in a prison camp for over 2 years, where the Nazis forced him to live in a doghouse and bark for his food. Her grandfather had a stroke when he saw his home in flames and was moved from hospital to hospital. Eventually the Nazis murdered him as a drain on national resources and dumped him in a mass grave with 500 other victims. Throughout her life she watched, rewatched, and thoroughly relished movies in which Nazis "get what's coming to them." She thrilled each time she watched the von Trapp family trick the Nazis and escape over the mountains to freedom and safety in Switzerland in The Sound of Music, one of her all-time favorite movies. All the memories of what the Nazis did to Germany led her never to return there after immigrating to America. She chose with her whole heart to make her future in the United States. She always changed the words in the patriotic song from “This is my country, land of my birth” to “This is my country, land of my CHOICE!” Anni celebrated the date she became an American citizen, June 28, every year and never took for granted what that citizenship means. All three of Anni’s and Terry’s children: Celeste, Sunshine Raye, and Val, were born in the Los Angeles area while Terry worked as a reporter or school curriculum writer. The middle child, daughter Sunshine Raye, passed away at the age of two in 1971. Anni and Terry endured the agony from losing a beloved daughter at such a tender age, but it deeply and permanently affected them. In her writer’s journal, Anni wrote about the day she walked out of a Los Angeles area medical center, having just heard from the doctors that there was nothing more they could do for Sunshine Raye. Anni wrote that it was a beautiful sunny California day, the birds were chirping, everyone was walking around happily as if nothing was wrong in the world, and Anni wanted to scream at them, why are you so happy, don’t you know what just happened, that my little girl will never get better? Yet, she did her best to care for Celeste and Val through her subsequent emotional struggles with this tragic loss. Sunshine Raye was never far from Anni’s and Terry’s thoughts, and we KNOW that a joyous reunion took place between the three of them on October 20 with Anni’s passing because of the temple covenants Anni and Terry made with their Heavenly Father that sealed their family to them for eternity. While living in Los Angeles, Anni and Terry frequently got together with Anni’s sister Eva (Evi), who had married a US Serviceman (David) and followed Anni in immigrating to America. Anni and Terry took their family on vacations from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City to visit Anni’s cousin Elvira (Elfi) and her family. Anni and Terry developed a love for Utah during these visits, and when employment circumstances became tenuous in Los Angeles, Terry had a strong feeling that the family should move to Utah and he should attend Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. They packed up and moved in August 1975, and Terry enrolled in a Master’s Degree program at BYU. Evi and David later moved to Utah as well, giving Anni a sister and cousin living within easy driving distances. Having family close to her in America was something Anni treasured, even as she stayed in contact by telephone with her surviving family in Germany. After settling in Utah, Anni joined Church friends in attending classes and learning new skills in homemaking, bottling fruits and vegetables, and performing family history research. She participated in the Church’s “extraction” efforts, in which she helped translate city, state, and national German government records stored on microfiche into English to assist people performing family history research long before the Internet and digitized records made such records instantly accessible worldwide. She painstakingly translated historical German birth, marriage, and death records so people of all faiths can find information about their ancestors, and Church members can perform ordinances by proxy for their ancestors who died without having the opportunity in mortality. Church members perform that proxy ordinance work in hundreds of temples worldwide. Anni and Terry served together as senior missionaries in the Lindon Utah Cannery Mission, from January 2008 to December 2009. This missionary service was perfectly suited to Anni’s lifelong quest to fight food scarcity. While Terry operated and monitored machinery that filled thousands of food storage cans with fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat for needy people around the world, Anni prepared the food cans for shipment to every continent through the Church’s welfare and humanitarian aid programs. Anni’s Other interests: Anni was a voracious reader, particularly books about American history, current events, Germany before, during, and immediately after World War II, Church history, and the Church pioneers who left behind their old lives and crossed the American plains by wagon or by handcart to escape persecution and build a strong vibrant faith community in the West. Anni felt a kinship to the pioneers, as she had left behind most of her family, her old life, and her native country, to learn a new language, embrace a new homeland, and build a new life among her faith community, first in Los Angeles, and then in Orem, Utah. She loved pioneer stories and had paintings depicting their journeys and struggles hung prominently in her home. Anni’s interests also included knitting and crocheting. She gifted to friends and family many shawls, afghans, slippers, and other items she had crafted. Sitting in her rocking chair and knitting or crocheting while watching the news or visiting with family and friends was enjoyable for her. Another of Anni’s great passions was her favorite place on earth, Bryce Canyon National Park, in southern Utah. From her first visit there she developed a strong attachment and loved the wide open spaces, the colorful ornate sandstone columns known as “Hoodoos” that change color tints as the sun’s rays journey across the sky from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point. Ruby’s Inn, and its gift shop, were where she was truly in her element, and at her passing she left behind an enormous wardrobe of Bryce Canyon shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets as she had to get something to remember every visit over many decades. She especially loved having Celeste’s and Val’s families join her and Terry there to hike the canyon trails, go on horseback rides, and attend the cowboy chuck wagon cookout. It was a precious taste of true Americana to her, and she always wanted to share the Bryce experience with family. Another place she found solitude and beauty was in Utah’s lovely Wasatch mountains. She enjoyed going to Tibble Fork Reservoir to picnic and watch her kids and grandkids kayak and canoe on the calm water that reflects the surrounding towering pine-covered mountains. She never tired of looking up at snow-capped Mount Timpanogos and frequently drove up into the canyons just to think and to be at peace. Her favorite drive was the Alpine Loop, which is beautiful with greenery and wildflowers and quaking aspen trees in spring and summer, and afire in glorious blazing red, yellow, and orange in autumn. The Loop passes the campsite where Anni and Terry took Celeste and Val camping or had Family Home Evening picnics on Monday nights throughout their childhoods, and the drive always helped her feel closer to her family, to nature, and to Jesus Christ, the Creator of it all, to whose service she dedicated her entire life. Anni’s Family: Anni is survived by children Celeste (husband Scott) and Val (wife Joy); grandchildren David, Ariel (husband Clint), Benjamin, Emily (husband Aaron), Nathan, Nicholas, Matthew, Dorey, Lilly, and Samuel; great-grandchildren Ella, Tanner, Isaac, Daisy, Daphne, and Elisa; sister-in-law Kathleen (husband John); sister-in-law Thelma; brother-in-law David; nieces Christa, Angelika, Cindy, Dinah, Jules, Nona, Rose, Debbie, Dani, Becky, Corina, and Tiffany; nephews Jeff, Steven, Jonathan, David, Patrick, Kim, and Casey; and cousin Annemarie. In lieu of flowers, the Heyer family requests that donations be made in Anni’s memory to the Community Action Services and Food Bank, www.communityactionprovo.org/donations/. Because of her experiences with food scarcity and malnutrition as a child in war-ravaged Hamburg, Germany, Anni had a lifelong passion for teaching and living emergency preparedness and self-reliance principles. Whatever food storage items were on sale, she would purchase additional items and donate them to community food banks. She also purchased a large turkey every November and donated it to the food bank. Having gone without basic nutrition for many years of her life, she never wanted to see anyone suffer as she and her family had experienced. Even as a widow on a small fixed income, she continued to purchase extra food items regularly and drive them to the food bank. Anni gave her Widow’s Mite to feed her community’s needy. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: And many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark 12:41-44). Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., Thursday October 31st, 2024, at the Lakeridge 4th Ward Chapel, 158 East 1100 South, Orem, Utah. The family will receive friends from 9:30-10:45 a.m. prior to services. Burial will follow at the Utah Veterans Cemetery and Memorial Park in Camp Williams, Utah. Condolences may be expressed to the family at www.bergmortuary.com.