phunkymunkey: Granny

Here is one of my favorite last photos of Granny from back in June... all snuggled in by her kids and grandkids etc.

This was posted in the Seattle times today.

Anne Roffey, RN, ARNP, died peacefully August 19, 2011 after a yearlong battle with recurrent breast cancer. A nurse, midwife and nurse practitioner for more than 60 years, she served patients through Planned Parenthood around the Puget Sound Region for over four decades. Married for 50 years to Peter Roffey, MD, who died in 2003, they raised four children, Jane Roffey Berry, Sally Jewell, Jim Roffey and Hugh Roffey, and enjoyed ten grandchildren, Emma, Theo, Will, Beryl, Hudson and Heath Roffey, Benjamin and Timothy Berry, and Peter and Anne Jewell.

Born Anne Murphy in Meerut, India in 1928 to British parents serving in the Army, she was educated in South Asia and Europe where she excelled in her studies and in piano, joined the Indian Army for two years, and then moved to London to train as a nurse midwife. There she met and married Peter Roffey at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. With a young family, they moved to Seattle in 1959 where Peter taught in the Anesthesia Department at the University of Washington Medical School, followed by private practice in Renton and Seattle. While serving as a volunteer counselor at Planned Parenthood in the 1970s, Anne completed her ARNP certification at the University of Washington and continued her enriching career, helping many thousands of women with their reproductive health. Her pragmatic nature and love of learning ensured that her patients received the best medical care,

Here are few of my favorites to add ....

This is a great piece shared with us from the present CEO of Planned Parenthood:

I first met Anne in 1982 when I began to volunteer for Planned Parenthood. Anne was THE clinician (there were others but she was in charge) in the main Seattle clinic. I was, as a 22 year old, dreadfully intimidated by the very exacting Nurse Practitioner with the British accent. “Did I make sure that the client had seen the breast exam film? Had I checked the lubricant pump (don’t ask!) to be sure it wasn’t clogged and wouldn’t spray goo all over the exam room? Where was her next patient, because it is important that we see people in the right order so no one waits too long…..” She kept me running and I vowed that I would eventually get it all right.

Our patients loved her. Some would talk to Anne and only Anne. She provided women’s health care in a sensitive but matter of fact way, changing the lives of thousands upon thousands of young women for the better. One day a rather large but very young woman came in for an exam, saying that there was an outside chance that she could be pregnant. I looked up when Anne came out of the room rather quickly, and said, “We have to get her to the hospital, she is delivering NOW.” We hustled and got her transferred safely, but Anne never changed tone of voice, or broke a sweat.

I credit Anne with honing my intellectual understanding of our mission as well. She would tolerate no judgment of our clients, no assumptions about their world or the circumstances they found themselves in, either from herself, or the many young people who then and now make up the staff at Planned Parenthood sites. Her “get the facts, then be helpful” approach is one which permeates the organization and our culture, and was at the root of how Anne, and subsequently the rest of us, thought about the work that we do.

Anne was very supportive of me in my graduate program in History at the UW. I was specializing in “modern” US and British history, which brought me face-to-face with the radical Pankhurst women of London. The Pankhursts, not content with asking for the vote, smashed windows of upscale businesses in the city to call attention to the plight of disenfranchised women. This brand of radical activism appealed to both Anne and me on some visceral level, not so much for the broken windows, but the “not waiting until someone hands it to you” part. She gave me a book from Peter’s and her library about the Pankhursts, which I still have and will always treasure.

We celebrated many a Halloween Party at Anne and Peter’s house, most of us dressed as one kind of contraceptive or another. The basement was stuffed with books, and the attic was filled with orchids, all being watered with Saline drip bags with medical needles tucked in by the roots dripping water to the plants. It was quirky and charming, as both Peter and Anne were.

Over the years as I grew in my career and was given the job as CEO of Planned Parenthood, Anne would critique my speeches. While early on she thought I needed improvement, I am pleased to know that in recent years she thought I was getting the hang of it!

Last year, as we began to implement our Electronic Medical Record, Anne told me that she thought that the computer would finally kill her career. I told her that I hoped that during the training sessions that she would think of the computer as a fun game, and that we didn’t expect anyone to be good at it in the early days of our implementation. A few days later I heard that on the second day of training, she could already show a colleague some shortcuts she had figured out, and with the computer, like everything else, she had conquered her fear and became the leader that she always was.

I was on sabbatical when Anne became seriously ill, and had only one chance to visit her when she knew her time was short. She, Barb, Beth, Jane and I had a chance to reminisce about our early days together in the clinic serving the movement that, one way or the other, we all ended up working in over the next 30 years. Even knowing that she was in the last struggle of her life, Anne laughed, was as sharp as ever, and asked me to convey her good wishes to all who knew her.

I will remember that she was clear on her mission and values, loved and was proud of all of her family; husband, children and grandchildren, and can claim a life in which her work and person made the world a better place every single day she was in it.

******

Granny and Grandpa at one of their infamous Planned Parenthood Halloween Parties ...always hosted at their home. PP fellow workers consistently bring up the memories from their crazy fun parties....... costumes etc.