Sallie S. Annett

Sallie Annett, age 88, of Hockessin, died on Friday, March 8, 2023.

She was born Sallie Anne Shaffer to George and Anne (Byers) Shaffer in Wheeling, WV in 1936. When asked about her life she said, “I never was a soloist.”  However, from an early age, music was a part of her life. As an adult, she even sang semi-professionally for the Singing City Choir, which regularly accompanied the Philadelphia Orchestra.

One of her fondest memories is singing rounds in the kitchen with her Mom and younger sister Polly while they did the dishes.  When the family joined a small church, with only three people in the choir, her mother drafted her and her sister to join the adult choir.  Singing choral music became a passion of hers.  She sang in church and school choirs wherever they went including a church in Narbeth, PA, where, during eleventh grade, Sallie met her future husband Hugh “Sandy” Annett.  Sallie also sang at Towson High School, MD, where she graduated in 1954, and Wellesley College where she graduated with a degree in history and a minor in French in 1958.

Sallie and Sandy courted for 4 1/2 years and were married at the beginning of Sallie’s senior year at Wellesley (and Sandy’s final year of seminary at Harvard Divinity).  Musically, Sandy was tone-deaf, but together they were wonderful dancers.  Early on, after attending a ball at the University of Pennsylvania, the two of them continued out into the night and waltzed down the streets of Broadway together.

Once they both graduated, they lived a life in the musical style of “call and response,” moving to where they were called in the service of inner-city ministries: Chicago to where their first son James, “Jim,” (1959) was born; Philadelphia where Katherine, “Reid,” (1960) was born; and to Kansas City, MO, where their youngest Mark (1965) was born. Sallie also lived with her family in New York City; Englewood, NJ; Upper Darby, PA; New Hope, Pa; Lawrenceville, NJ; Farmville, VA; and finally in Hockessin, DE.

As her children grew, Sallie received her teaching Certificate at St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia, PA, and began teaching history as a Social Studies teacher in 1970 in inner city communities.  Sallie taught with compassion and achieved results with students others turned their backs to. Once, when a student pulled a knife on another student, and male faculty down the hall were not responding, Sallie waded into the crowd.  While the female students were screaming, she calmly said, “Give me the knife.”  She knew if he really wanted to kill someone he wouldn’t have pulled the knife in school.  Leaning closer to him she said, “Give me the knife and we’ll go talk to a counselor and we’ll get this straightened out,” and he did.

Sallie had compassion and love for others that few others have. She never was a soloist but she lived a life singing in harmony with others.

She never stopped dancing with her husband until he predeceased her in 2012.

Sallie is lovingly remembered by her sister Polly, by her children Jim (& Fiona), Reid, and Mark (& Miriam); her grandchildren Lauren (& Mike), Liam, Hugh (& Destini), Annie (& Zach), and Meaghan (& Spencer); and her great-grandchildren Joey and Sophia.

A Memorial Service will be held on March, 23, 2024, at 2 pm in the auditorium of  Cokesbury Village, 726 Loveville Rd, Hockessin, DE 19707.

Education and caring for others was an enduring passion of Sallie’s.  Aside from helping friends and family, she contributed to a school in the Congo.  Building on this legacy, Sallie founded an educational scholarship program for the employees of her retirement community, now in its ninth year.  In lieu of flowers, consider a gift to the Cokesbury Village Employee Scholarship Fund. Checks may be made payable to Acts Legacy Foundation with CV Scholarship Fund in the memo field and mailed to 420 Delaware Drive, Fort Washington, PA 19034, or online at www.Actsgiving.org.