Annette Sophie Zaepffel Long

Annette Sophie Zaepffel Long was born on Oct. 16, 1920, in Woodside, Calif., and passed away peacefully in her sleep, in her own home, in her own bed, at the Alpine Vista senior apartment complex in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Sunday morning July 17, 2016, after suffering a debilitating stroke a month earlier.

Annette’s parents, Elise Scherding and Anton Alexis Zaepffel, both immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island from the Alsace Lorraine region of France in the early 1900s. Elise and “Tony the Iceman” raised their family of five children in Woodside, where Tony first delivered ice to local residents prior to the invention of refrigerators; later, he launched and ran the Woodside General Store until the end of his life.

Although she talked about being afraid of her sharp and domineering father, Annette remembers a relatively happy childhood, being very close to her mother, playing with her brother and sisters (and their dog Butch), and doing well in school. She graduated from high school at the age of 16 and was the first of the Zaepffel siblings to attend college — San Jose State University — with help from her eldest sister, Alice. Nicknamed “Zeppi” by her college peers, Annette graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education and minor in music. In addition to learning to play the piano during her college years, “Zeppi” also became a fierce sportswoman, playing varsity badminton, and field hockey.

After graduating from college, Annette went on to become a stand-out performer with Madeline Green’s International Folk Dance Exhibition Troupe which performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She also began her primary school teaching career, first in Livingston, and later in Redwood City, where she was loved by both her students and colleagues.

During World War II, Annette was hired to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in Yosemite National Park where Ansel Adams’ children were counted among her 15 students. One of the happiest periods of her life, Annette spent most of her free time gal pal-ing around with her younger sister, Marie, and her friend and fellow teacher, Grace Ganley; adding hiking, skiing, camping, canoeing and exploring national parks across the country to her list of favorite extracurricular activities before having to leave Yosemite and return to Bay Area to take care of her mother who had suffered a stroke. It was during that post-Yosemite period that Annette met tall and quiet Pennsylvanian, William E. Long, who showed up serendipitously at a community folk dance session Annette attended in Menlo Park every week. He asked her to dance …

Bill and Annette were married a year later and continued their happy union for 47 more years until Bill died of complications from colon surgery. Together they raised six children — Kirk, Elise (Lisa), Sandy, Zeppi, Kerry and Quentin — first in Coalinga, Calif., where the first four children were born, and then later at their home in Los Altos, Calif., when Bill became a full-time faculty member in the electronics and engineering department of Foothill College where he remained for his entire teaching career.

Annette occasionally did substitute teaching during the Los Altos years to help pay the bills but, for the most part, she was a stay-at-home mom to her six rambunctious kids. Annette instilled in her children a great love of music, dance, art, nature, literature, sports and the great out-of-doors. She also became a champion bowler, adding another sport skill and multiple trophies to her expanding athletic belt.

When Bill retired, he and his “blushing bride” as he always called her, took to the road and became active members of a local RV club, where they enjoyed traveling to Death Valley, Copper Canyon, all over the Sierras, and around the country with their newly retired group of friends. In 1994, Annette and Bill even made a trip to New York City to perform in their daughter’s new intergenerational dance/theater work produced by the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music where they stole the show. They also traveled to France, Australia and Alaska and had plans to visit the Panama Canal which held a special fascination for both of them, although this trip never came to pass.

After Bill’s retirement, Annette and Bill also started traveling regularly to Sandpoint, Idaho, where their daughter Kerry delivered their first grandchild, Melissa Nicole Kresge, in a log cabin without plumbing or electricity, which Kerry and her husband Dave built themselves out in the woods. The Sandpoint area suited Annette’s love of nature, wildlife, hiking and mountains, and soon Bill and she were building their own little cabin near Kerry at Garfield Bay on Lake Pend Oreille which soon came to serve as the Long family’s primary vacation “retreat” and holiday gathering place.

A lifelong amateur athlete, Annette began running 5K “fun runs” in her late 60s with the encouragement of her daughter, Zeppi, who also ran track with the Cindergals Track Club during her high school years and after she also graduated from San Jose State. Although petite at 5’ 1”, Annette was always a fierce competitor and now began collecting a wall full of first place ribbons into her 70s, running 10-minute miles without training, while also holding her purse and wearing her beat-around Keds, a floppy straw sun-hat, and mom jeans, yet still leaving most of her better-trained — and better-dressed — competitors in the dust.

A few years after Bill’s death in 1999, Annette sold the family’s home in Los Altos and moved permanently to Idaho where she made her new home in the Alpine Vista senior apartments in Sandpoint. There she enjoyed singing in a chorus, going on local field trips, taking exercise classes, doing arts and crafts projects, and making her daughter, Kerry, a CNA at the Alpine Vista, laugh on a daily basis.

Annette voiced strong opinions about many things, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, the color blue, and peppermint milk shakes. She loved birds, animals, redwood trees, turquoise jewelry, Navajo rugs, and thrift stores. She never met a rock she didn’t like. She had indefatigable energy, could write upside down and backwards with both hands, and did everything she could to give all her children all the opportunities and encouragement she could to follow their individual dreams.

Like her sister Louise, Annette shared a prodigious and goofy sense of humor which her friends in recent times at the Alpine Vista always remarked about with a smile. Despite the unexpected sudden loss of two of her children long before their time, at mid-life Annette suffered these huge tragedies without being broken or becoming bitter; she always made the best of whatever situation she was dealt. She was always cheerful, upbeat, charming, feisty and pleasant to be around, never complaining or whining to the very end. Her daughters and friends were constantly in awe of her strength, endurance, fortitude and positive outlook on life.

Annette is preceded in death by her parents, Elise and Anton; her brother, Lex; her sisters, Marie and Alice; her husband, Bill; her son, Sanford Alexis; and her daughter, Zeppi Louise. She is survived by her sister, Louise Rahmer of Walnut Creek, Calif.; her daughters, Elise Marie Long of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Kerry Alice Kresge of Sandpoint, Idaho; her sons, Quentin Guy Long and Kirk William Long of San Jose, Calif.; and her granddaughters, Melissa Midstokke of Sandpoint and Crystal Long of San Jose, Calif.; in addition to a number of loved nieces and nephews spread out across the country.

In lieu of flowers, Annette would prefer that friends and family make donations to The Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club, an organization that she was a member of and dearly loved and supported for over 75 years.