Anne Poyntell (Held) LaBudde

After a brief decline on April 20th, our mother Anne Poyntell Held LaBudde died at 6pm that evening, re-joining our dad, Roy (… just in time for Heaven’s cocktail hour). She was 93. In recent years, Mom lived at St. John’s in assisted living. The family is very grateful for the compassionate care St. John’s provided to both Mom and Dad (and to Anne’s mother fifty years ago).

Anne was born to Gertrude Kemper Best Held and Jacob Henry Held on November 2, 1928, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the middle of three children and only daughter. She attended Morristown Friend’s School in Morristown, NJ, and Smith College in Northampton, MA. Shortly after returning to Milwaukee, she met her life partner, Roy LaBudde, and together they built his law career, advising small and medium sized businesses and their families, with mom often called on to entertain clients and law partners on short notice.

After marrying dad in 1952, mom gave birth to three boys: Peter (Barbara), Michael (Frances) and Jack (Sue). Deedles, Mikey, Gackies and their spouses all survive her. Still hoping for a daughter, mom was inadvertently blessed with identical twin girls, Susan and Sarah (James) Wolffe, only a few days after she learned she was carrying twins. (Scrupulous about treating Dude and Sissy equally, mom sent identical letters to the girls at camp, alternating who received the original, who the carbon copy, starting with Sarah). They raised their family in Bayside.

Anne was preceded in death by her steadfast loving husband Roy, her two brothers Robert and John, great-granddaughter Emma, dear brothers-in-law Donald LaBudde and William Brunsell, son-in-law Brian Akers, nephew Robert Held, and too many friends to mention. Further survived by eight grandchildren, three great grandchildren, her dearest sister-in-law Thea LaBudde Brunsell, and beloved nieces and nephews including Bill and Thea’s better-behaved kids, son Paul (Meribeth) and daughter Ann (Gery), who are as close as her own.

Mom loved architecture and designed the homes they built for their growing family and retirement. She was an excellent, canny golfer, and co-ran a successful gift-shop for almost 20 years with some friends.

As a mother, mom was the uncomplaining, patient, and calm center amid the typical LaBudde-family exuberance, impetuousness & untamed rough-and-tumble. Mother was serene amid rambunctiousness, even when meals devolved into competition, experiments and food fights. While her children were often charmed by bad ideas hastily executed, mom was graced with forbearance.

Her hands-off parenting style totally fit the 1960s & 1970’s suburban vibe. After the girls staged a sword fight on the mansard roof (with family heirloom sabers) for a home movie, mom and dad simply padlocked the attic door. A son —who shall not be here named— playing William Tell with his new bow-and-arrow set, shot a tennis ball clean out of the mouth of the trusting neighbor boy across the street (after the girls declined the opportunity).

As a helpmeet, sister-in-law, and friend, Mom was a pro at hosting parties, holiday celebrations, cocktail parties, and vacations, pulling together meals and travels flawlessly, time and again. Over the years we skied out West, station-wagoned across the country (5 kids, no seat belts, unlimited bubble gum), and went up north. She schlepped us to hockey games and wrestling meets, field hockey and track, ski races and hospitals ERs. Mom and dad launched us all through college into professional lives, debt-free.

Mom often led or expressed by action and example, rather than words. A steady rather than adventurous cook, we children still recall the Chicken Breast Decade and the Salmon with Soy Sauce Decade, confidently deployed after the first, tentative early days of broiled-hamburger-on-toast. She made the most out of onion salt. Her one care package sent to college (when Sarah asked) was a box of cake mix.

 Above all, mom and dad knew how to have—and share—joyful fun. Together they cultivated many cherished friendships, cemented through travel, parties, bridge games, theater trips, tennis, meals, and volunteer work.

She and dad embodied generosity and hospitality. Holiday meals routinely included friends and extended adopted family, especially our beloved “uncle Jack,” Jacob Bernheim, dad’s law partner and friend, and dad’s childhood friend Dick Evans. There was always, always room for an extra seat at the table.

Mom and dad were true & loving partners, dad always grateful he got to “marry up,” as he put it, contrasting his homespun, Germanic-Lutheran “peasant” origins with mom’s “classier” ones.

Mom’s passing was gentle and peaceful as her local children and spouses shared her final hours with stories, moments of quiet reflection, and laughter, with us drawn even closer together under the quiet shelter of her departing but enduring love.

A Memorial service will be held for Anne on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, at 12:00 Noon at Christ Church Episcopal, 5655 North Lake Drive, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin 53217 with a reception to follow at the church.

The family requests no flowers, but memorials to St. John’s or Christ Church of Whitefish Bay.

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