Anna Stiles
March 16, 1927 - March 29, 2025
Anna Alida (Alberts) Stiles was born in Athabasca on March 16, 1927 and dieed on March 29, 2025. She grew up as a tomboy on her family's farm in the Atlanta District, east of Colinton. In the final year of World War II, she attended one year of Normal School, and, with that scant training, she went out at the age of 18 to teach at one-roomed Greyville School, in the recently settled area north of the Athabasca River. She met and married Len Stiles at 21 and they raised a family of four in Chisholm, Smith, and Athabasca. Ann was widowed in 1985 but, over the next forty years, took solace in family and community.
She was predeceased by her parents, Virginia, and Albert Alberts, by her brother Eddie and sisters Estelle and Alberta, by her beloved husband Len, and by her daughter Lynn. She is survived by her son Ned (Judy) and her daughters Joanne (Ian) and Laurel (Pat), by her grandchildren - Len, Johann, Jacqueline, Rory, Lida, and Darren and by her great-grandson Levi.
Ann Stiles enjoyed 98 years that were rich in experience. She stood as part of the vanguard of her generation in taking on roles in addition to those of wife and mother. She was a teacher, a businesswoman, a newspaper columnist, and a quilting instructor. She was witty and possessed of an agile and often quirky sense of humor. She was also generous in sharing her talents and skills as a volunteer in very many ways: community gardening, public speaking, and literacy coaching, helping in a soup kitchen and speaking out for peace. She was perhaps proudest of designing and partnering with others in creating three enormous quilts depicting the story of Athabasca Landing.
If you had asked Ann to find a theme to her life, it would have been the Athabasca River itself. She lived her entire life in communities in the Athabasca Valley. She found comfort, pleasure, and meaning walking trails in the boreal forest, whether teaching her children to identify plants and birds or keeping track of the beaver dams on Muskeg Creek. She was a passionate advocate for conservation of the land and for fairness for all its people. The Athabasca and the communities along its banks and valleys were her home - both literally and spiritually.
A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date.
Expressions of sympathy may be shared at westlockfuneralhome.com.
Westlock Funeral Home & Crematorium
780-349-3474
