Anneliese ‘Annie’ Koenig, 85, died peacefully at home on August 3. She was born in a farmhouse outside Manhattan in 1941, the daughter of Volga German parents who spoke Russian at the table and English at the feed store. She remembered when the train stopped twice a day and when it stopped stopping altogether.

Annie taught third grade at Longfellow Elementary for thirty-two years. She taught the children of ranchers, the children of professors, and eventually the grandchildren of both. She kept every class photo in a cedar chest beside the water heater. She could still name the kid who ate paste in 1974 (it was Danny Miller, and he grew up to own the tire shop on Seventh).

She bought her house on South Willson in 1968 for what her daughter Liesl now calls “a mythical number.” The view of the M from the kitchen window filled in gradually — first a split-level, then a condo complex, then a short-term rental with a hot tub on the deck. Annie waved to everyone. She brought zucchini bread to the new neighbors until they stopped answering the door, then she brought it to the fire station instead.

She never learned to parallel park. She never stopped saying “the college” for MSU. She voted in every election since 1960 and never told a soul who she voted for, not even her late husband Helmut. The lilacs she planted in 1972 still bloom beside the driveway.

A gathering will be held at Hope Lutheran Church on Saturday at 11 a.m.