Anna Voner

The sun set on the life of Anna Rea Voner on Friday, July 20, 2012 when she slipped peacefully away from this world while asleep at Medi-Lodge Nursing Home in Southfield, Michigan. Our “Diva” was gone. Our world won’t be the same without her.

As the day dawned on May 5, 1939, so did the new life of Anna Rea Boggs. Waiting to greet her as she started on her life’s path were her parents, Johnnie Reed Boggs and Annie Lois (Linder) Boggs, and Anna Rea’s two year old brother, Matthew.

An analysis of the name of Anna Rea says the name gave her a great desire for a high standard of living. It says that from an early age her ambitions had been directed toward the accumulation of wealth. It says she had a generous side and liked to share what she had with others. It says she had a clever mind and must have an interest outside the home to be happy. The analysis goes on to describe a very strong part of Anna Rea’s character: because of her interests in business and affairs of the world, she found it easy to communicate with all types of people.

In 1958, Anna Rea married James (Jimmy) Voner and their blessed union produced two beautiful children James (better known as Jai) and Apryl Lynn, and her beloved grandchildren: Phelan Jarrell Lowe, Evan Voner, Trey Voner and Justin Miles Voner.

Her academic years growing up as a young girl in Detroit Public Schools were punctuated with attending many different schools. Samson, Alger, Hutchins, Northern High and finally Northwestern High Schools were all graced with her attendance. Anna Rea always claimed a place in the Class of Northern 1957, even though she graduated from Northwestern. In school, she excelled academically and in sports, being active in basketball and softball, roller skating at the Arcadia, dancing and just having joy in being alive.

Anna Rea’s educational pursuits did not stop with her graduation from High School. After her marriage and with the continued support and encouragement of her husband, she took classes in computer programming and classes in modeling. Her studying computer programming was decades before the personal computer (PC) was an educational fixture. Her classes in modeling led to a job modeling wigs and the ad featuring her in one of those wigs ran for a year in the Michigan Chronicle.

Dedicating her life to the Lord, Anna Rea was baptized as a child at New Harmony Baptist Church, learning and growing as a Christian. Later in life she converted to Catholicism and joined St. Cecilia Catholic Church.

Anyone who knew Anna Rea knew that she was fearless; she faced challenges head on and usually found a means to make a way out of no way. During her lifetime she worked at various jobs, doing laundry for neighbors, modeling for department stores, bookkeeping for small businesses, and eventually landing employment as a clerk for the United States Postal Service.
Into every life a little rain must fall and it was in 1969 that Anna Rea was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She was slowed but not stopped as she took medical retirement from the U.S. Post Office and faced the challenges of a new day. Told she would not be able to do a myriad of things, Anna Rea never let a silly thing like a diagnosis get in her way. She taught herself to walk again and she continued to raise her children with love and a strong hand.

She sought out and subjected herself to every “cure” she heard of. Even until her death, she never gave up hope that a cure would be found for Multiple Sclerosis.
Anna Rea was a fashion plate. She loved clothes and from her employment with the Postal Service she bought closets full of them. Once she got them home and added her touch they never looked the same. She had an uncanny ability to add to or take from a garment to make it “Anna Rea Fashionable”. She shopped at resale stores, consignment shops, and yard sales and knew quality when she saw it. She did not do too much remaking of her garments in the later years of her life, but she still had the ability to take it apart and convert it to something chic.

Anna Rea remained the one to keep the family together and encouraged the continuation of the annual Adam Mathes Family Council picnic every summer, which had been started by her own grandmother and cousin back in 1967. This was a very important part of her life as she never missed a picnic unless her health kept her away. She was one who knew everyone in the family and all of “their business.” Anna Rea prided herself on keeping tabs on everyone because she was one who would always “check on” everyone, making sure everyone was OK and connected to each other. There were some she called daily, some weekly, some others less frequently, but she never made a big deal about her calls and they were done because of her love of people, especially those of her family. In addition to her brother she had other cousins who were just like brothers and sisters. Donald Coleman, John Lennard Clowney, Lawrence Clowney, Jr., and Victoria Crowe were as close as any siblings could get.

As close as her blood relatives were, she had close friends who were like family to her. These were friends from the North End neighborhood of her childhood as well as friends from school or from her job. Among her closest friends were Sylvia Burston Perry, Wilhelmina Ware Thomas, and Evelyn Robinson.

She didn’t just fight her Multiple Sclerosis, she helped others to do the same by working as a volunteer for the Michigan Multiple Sclerosis Society for several years. She also fought it by being a living example of her favorite saying, “Can’t never could.” She never backed down from a challenge. Anna Rea was a fighter.

In her waning days she was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy, and that, combined with the MS, kept her from walking. It did not dampen her spirit nor did it keep her from maintaining her sense of humor or her concern for family and friends. Even as dusk began to settle on her life, she could be heard instructing her children to continue her tradition of checking on various people from her life.

Anna Rea was preceded in death by her parents and her brother. She leaves to mourn her husband of fifty four years, her children and grandchildren, her “brother” Donald and his wife Ruth and his daughter, cousins Victoria, Emanuel, and Eric Crowe and their children, her sister-in-law Shirley McGowan, her children and grandchildren, her brother-in-law Dewey Lawrence, his children, her cousins, friends, neighbors, and a host of other loved ones.