Annebell Andersen, age 97, of Aurora, formerly of Marquette, passed away on Wednesday, August 24, 2022, at Memorial Community Care.

Funeral Services will be held at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, August 30 at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Kronborg. Rev. Ricardo Riqueza will officiate. The interment will be in St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service.  Memorials may be made to the family to designate at a later date.  Condolences may be e-mailed to the family through the mortuary website at www.higbymortuary.com.

The family will honor her husband, Ardean Andersen and son, Tim Andersen at this same service.

Annebell Andersen was born 16 March 1925 in the home of a midwife in Hay Springs, and passed away on August 24, 2022 at Memorial Community Care in Aurora.  She was the fourth child of Carl and Anne (Andersen) Smith who resided on a farm in Mirage Flats adjacent to the Niobrara River south of Hay Springs.  Her father was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning while plowing when she was barely a year old.  She attended the Peters Country School through the eighth grade followed by four years of high school in Hay Springs, graduating in 1943.  She enrolled in Dana College in Blair and then trained with the World War II Army Cadet Nursing Corps, first at Immanuel Hospital School of Nursing in Omaha and subsequently at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.  She graduated as a Registered Nurse in the class of 1947 from Immanuel Hospital.

She married Ardean Andersen of Marquette, on September 27, 1948 and moved with him to his family’s home farm hear Kronborg.  After their children were all attending school, she worked part-time at Litzenberg Hospital in Central City until Hamilton Manor was built in Aurora.  At that point, she began working full-time and became Director of Nursing when the Manor expanded to a 100+ bed facility.  She served as School Nurse for the Marquette School System and was a member of the Hamilton County Health Association.  After retiring from nursing in 1985 she provided respite care for a few full-time caregivers so they could shop and do other business outside the home.  She and her husband moved into East Park Villa in Aurora in the summer of 2010 and to Memorial Community Care in 2019.

She is survived by three children and one daughter-in-law, five grandchildren, and one great-grandson. She is preceded in death by her husband Ardean and her elder son.  Other survivors include a brother-in-law and a number of nieces and nephews.

At the end of her 97 year life journey, Annebell left a final message:  “To those I love:  when I am gone, just release me, let me go – so I can move into my afterglow.  You mustn’t tie me down with your tears; let’s be happy that we had so many years. I gave you my love, and you can only guess how much you gave me in happiness….It’s only for a while that we must part, so bless the memories within your heart.”

Source: https://www.auroranewsregister.com/obituaries/annebell-andersen