Anne Craig Warren, 90, died in her sleep on April 9, 2011. A Mystic native, she was born in the house at 44 Church St on the Stonington side of Mystic in 1920 to William Payne Craig and Ida Holly Craig. Her father and his brother, Charles, were local builders of houses. Her mother worked at the Velvet Mill. The longest-lived of the Craigs, Anne was predeceased by four siblings—Barbara Ferguson, William Craig, Jean Killen, and Augustus Craig. She leaves behind her son, Craig Warren, her daughter, Cynthia Warren, her sisters-in-law, Virginia Craig and Dorothy Feld, several generations of nieces and nephews, dear friends, and her beloved dog, Laddie.
Anne graduated from Rhode Island Hospital School of Nursing in 1942 and married Curtis Eugene Warren (d. 2007) in 1944. As an RN for 48 years, she worked at local nursing homes, including Merwin Whipple Hall, established by her nursing school classmate, Stella Whipple, and Mary Elizabeth Nursing Center, where she was head nurse. She loved geriatric patients and sang to them while she worked, eliciting the name “Anne the Magnificent” from one of her charges. She was a private duty nurse to Juliet Haley of the Haley Farm in Noank.
Anne’s ties with Mystic were many and her memories deep. She saw Mystic change over a period of almost a century and knew it when the downtown was a typical Main Street, USA, with stores to meet every daily need. She lived at many addresses during her long life here. Besides the house of her birth, in her girlhood, she also lived on Denison Avenue. When her father built a house on the other side of the river at 48 Pequot Avenue, she and her family moved there. It was but a short walk down the hill to attend school at Mystic Academy, now assisted living facility Academy Pointe, where she died.
A hiatus in her time from Mystic included not only her time in Providence, but also New York, where she worked at Cornell Medical School Hospital. After her marriage, she worked in hospitals in Philadelphia while her husband attended grad school at Penn. Subsequently, they both worked for one year at New Hampton School in New Hampshire, she as school nurse. But they decided to make their home in Mystic, first in a rental at 98 New London Road when it was part of a real working farm owned by Jimmy and Bill Stanton. Finally, in 1958 they settled at 89 High Street, Mystic and lived there for more than 50 years.
Anne was a lover of words and when the doctor told her she should do the New York Times crossword puzzle to keep her aging mind sharp, she’d already been doing it for years. In her youth, she memorized long narrative poems and could still recite them decades later. She had a Wordsworthian love of Nature and in her last days marveled at wandering clouds and budding treetops. She adored Italian opera and always said that in her next life, she hopes to be an opera singer.
Anne was a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Pearl St., Mystic, where she served on the altar guild for many years. A funeral service will be held there on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. .
Visiting hours will be on Wednesday, April 13th at Dinoto Funeral Home, 17 Pearl Street, Mystic from 5 to 8 p.m.. She will be buried in Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Mystic & Noank Library or to the ASPCA.
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