Ann Garrett ~ Artist and Writer

Our elegant, strong, creative Ann quietly slipped away onto her next adventure in the early morning hours of Sunday, February 16, 2025. She was 90 years young.

Anna Lee (named after her grandmother Anna Lisa) was born in Nephi, Utah on May 24, 1934, to Ellen Marie Kallbacka, the daughter of Swedish immigrants and LaVon Garrett, the grandson of Mormon pioneers. At the age of 7, when the family moved to Sugarhouse, her now divorced mother went to work loading machine gun belts for the war effort and Ann became the cook and caretaker for her younger sister and brother. She was her mother’s partner and the nickels and dimes she made babysitting neighbors’ kids provided much needed bus money for the family. At age 13 her mother remarried, and Ann began learning how to build and fix anything by working side by side with her stepdad; and by age 14 she was working after school in sales, alongside her mother, at Auerbach’s Department store.

After graduating from South High School in 1952, a $50 scholarship helped her enroll at the University of Utah. She worked her way through school, clerking and trimming windows at Whipple’s, a high-end dress shop, while studying art with teachers like LeConte Stewart, Alvin Gittins and Florence Ware; and joining friends in a studio space downtown. After a stint as an interior designer for Bennett’s Paint and an adventure working in San Francisco, she went back to school earning a BA in English and a MS in Journalism & Mass Communications. Ann taught journalism and handled public relations for Westminster College and Weber State then embarked on a career in public relations that took her to the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Tennessee, Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls then back to Utah to create the public face for the then controversial Intermountain Power Project.

Truly a Renaissance woman, Ann was equally comfortable and equally successful designing and building a deck, writing an award-winning short story, painting a breathtaking landscape, cooking a gourmet meal or rewiring the house. She was always ahead of her time, creating a line of canvas products in the 1960s, decades before anything like that was available, and producing weekly videos to help sell bonds to New York investors in the 1980s, something that no one had done before then. She was always a bit proud to have presented both the Tabernacle Choir and the Saliva Sisters on the same program for the grand opening of the Intermountain Power Project.

Ann loved to travel, especially in her jeep driving the dirt roads of southern Utah, taking photos for her next painting; going to exhibits and plays in New York; or tooling around Europe enjoying the museums, architecture and food. Whether wandering among the street markets in the south of France, walking in the Swiss Alps, reveling in a religious procession in Seville, or eating yet another gelato in Italy, Ann made sure to always spend a few days in Paris before returning home.

She loved classical music, a passion acquired as a child. When she found herself captivated by Disney’s Fantasia, she made her little brother and sister sit through the next showings until they rebelled and escaped. She also loved the American Songbook, the music of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. In the last few years Ann has amazed everyone by remembering every word to dozens of songs from that era. She was an avid reader, equally fascinated by the works of Virginia Woolf, Tony Hillerman and Carl Sagan.

Ann loved the smell of coffee and cardamom, a gin martini, playing video poker and watching birds on the backyard feeder. She couldn’t pass an old lady, even when she was one, without greeting her and telling her how beautiful she looked. Among the many things she will be remembered for is being fiercely proud of her Swedish heritage.

Ann was preceded in death by her parents and her siblings, Vance, Clarie, Carrie, Sandy and Bob. She is survived by her partner Carol Edison, her nephew Tom Holt (Megan) and great nephews Chase Holt and Parker Holt. She also leaves behind nieces and nephews: Julie, Debi, Georgie, Ronnie, Lez, Shauna, Darren, Robert, Cindy and Ryan, her cats Sarah and Joey, and a large group of friends, her intentional family, that are among the most amazing people on the face of the earth.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Utah Food Bank in Ann’s name.
A celebration of Ann’s life will be on Saturday, March 1 from 6-8 PM at Starks Funeral Parlor. Guests are encouraged to use parking and entrance located on the north side of the building.