Co-founder of Turner-Pieters-Hazel Real Estate
Ann D. Turner, 109, of Harvard, died peacefully Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 at Lifecare Center of Nashoba Valley in Littleton.
She was born in the Philadelphia area Aug. 28 1899. In 1918 she married Allen Turner, a career Naval officer who served in both World Wars. For 10 years the Turners moved around the country, settling in Harvard in 1928 with their then 9-year-old daughter, Georgia.
They rented Orchard End, located in a bucolic setting near Tahanto Trail, from Fiske Warren, the single-tax visionary who developed much of Harvard in the early days of the century. Mrs. Turner always remembered the house fondly for the fragrant apple and lilac blooms under the windows.
In the early l930s the Turners built their house on West Bare Hill Road, the first new house built in the town in many years on what was then a truly bare hill with a clear view to Bare Hill Pond.
In 1951, the war and his Navy career over, Allen and Ann established a real estate business, which grew into the firm now known as Turner-Pieters-Hazel Real Estate.
Mrs. Turner was an accomplished gardener and bridge player, and she had an elegant sense of style. She had many friends and was a charming hostess. Her granddaughter Anne J. Anspach of Philadelphia remembers that her grandmother was also a nurturer who could successfully raise abandoned baby birds and rabbits and then release them back to nature, usually in the woods surrounding her house. She could identify all of them years after taking care of them.
In 1996 Mrs. Turner was awarded the Harvard Post Cane as Harvard’s oldest citizen.
In addition to her daughter Georgia and granddaughter Anne, Mrs. Turner is survived by a grandson, Michael Johnson, four great-grandchildren, and one great-great-granddaughter.
Burial was at Bellevue Cemetery Nov. 10.
