Obituary for Anna Beth Herold
December 27, 1928 - April 25, 2022 Service Date: Anna Beth Herold
1928 – 2022 On the night of April 25, 2022, Anna Beth Herold (nee Gill) passed away after a long journey with dementia. She was 93 years old. She is now with her beloved husband of 53 years, Edward D. Herold, who passed away in 2005; and the many family and friends who predeceased her, including, her brother, Silas Carter Gill, Jr. (2003) and Mother Eula F. Gill (1989). Anna Beth, or Anna B as she was called when she moved “North,” was born in Cooper, Texas in December 1928 to Silas Carter Gill Sr. and Eula Florence (Petitfils) Gill. She was a gifted student who graduated from high school at 16 and then worked to put herself through nursing school graduating from Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Dallas, Texas in 1943. She developed lifelong friends in nursing school and enjoyed many “get togethers” with them in the later years. Anna Beth met her (to be) husband Edward Herold (a Yankee! born in Greene Maine) while working as an OR Supervisor at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and they married in February 1952. They had Elisabeth in 1955 and David in 1962 and in 1966 decided to move north to Riverhead, LI, New York and subsequently to Perkinsville, Vermont (1968) as part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Missionary program. After years of prayer, sacrifices, and challenging work they celebrated the establishment of the Precision Baptist Church in North Springfield, Vermont. In later years they became very involved in and had many friends at Calvery Baptist Church in Springfield Vermont. Anna Beth continued her nursing career at Springfield Hospital in Springfield Vermont where she worked in various capacities from Night Relief Supervisor (where for many years she worked the 11 pm to 7 am shift and was still always there for breakfast before we went to school and getting dinner ready when we came home in the afternoon!!), Assistant Day Supervisor, and manager of the Oncology Clinic. retiring in 1994 after 25 years of helping thousands of patients. Anna Beth was devoted to her family, her faith, and her community in Vermont. In their retirement years, Anna Beth and Edward enjoyed summer vacations in York, Maine and several years after Edward’s death, she made the decision to leave her Vermont home of 40 years to move to Maine to be close to Elisabeth and her grandsons, William and Benjamin Herold-Porter who had previously moved there in 2006. She lived in Meetinghouse Village in Kittery, Maine for 4 years and then as dementia became part of her life moved in with her family in Biddeford Maine. Her last years were spent in private memory care facilities including The Landing at Saco Bay in Saco Maine where she passed away. Our many thanks go to those individual caregivers who provided compassionate and skilled care for her and the other patients in those facilities. Dementia is a hard and complicated disease, but Anna Beth navigated her journey with the faith and grace she showed throughout her life. She enjoyed being with her family in Maine, spending time by the ocean and black raspberry ice cream! She loved to read, even when that was finally reduced to children’s picture books. Once she accepted having to use a walker, she spent hours on journeys throughout the facility and was always the last one to leave the dining room as she continued to enjoy her food until her last few days. Anna Beth leaves behind her daughter Elisabeth and grandsons Bill and Ben in Maine; son David and family in Vermont, her extended Petitfils and Gill family in Texas who, although she saw them infrequently, were always in her thoughts and prayers and all those whose lives she touched throughout her nursing career, her faith journey, and her belief in putting others needs first. To try and put into words my mother’s life is impossible. It was not a life of momentous achievements or accolades, of monetary wealth or material goods. Instead, it was a life of love and devotion to her family and friends, the hard work needed to accomplish goals; her faith in knowing there is a reason for all of this and the immense gratitude for all she had. In these most important ways, she had an amazing life, and she will be deeply missed. “Drop a pebble in the water: just a splash, and it is gone;
But there’s half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea.
And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.”
James W. Foley, 1911. If you would like to share this with other family and friends, please visit https://www.autumngreenfuneralhome.com /obituaries. Arrangements are entrusted to Bibber Memorial Chapel at Autumn Green, in Alfred.
1928 – 2022 On the night of April 25, 2022, Anna Beth Herold (nee Gill) passed away after a long journey with dementia. She was 93 years old. She is now with her beloved husband of 53 years, Edward D. Herold, who passed away in 2005; and the many family and friends who predeceased her, including, her brother, Silas Carter Gill, Jr. (2003) and Mother Eula F. Gill (1989). Anna Beth, or Anna B as she was called when she moved “North,” was born in Cooper, Texas in December 1928 to Silas Carter Gill Sr. and Eula Florence (Petitfils) Gill. She was a gifted student who graduated from high school at 16 and then worked to put herself through nursing school graduating from Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Dallas, Texas in 1943. She developed lifelong friends in nursing school and enjoyed many “get togethers” with them in the later years. Anna Beth met her (to be) husband Edward Herold (a Yankee! born in Greene Maine) while working as an OR Supervisor at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and they married in February 1952. They had Elisabeth in 1955 and David in 1962 and in 1966 decided to move north to Riverhead, LI, New York and subsequently to Perkinsville, Vermont (1968) as part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Missionary program. After years of prayer, sacrifices, and challenging work they celebrated the establishment of the Precision Baptist Church in North Springfield, Vermont. In later years they became very involved in and had many friends at Calvery Baptist Church in Springfield Vermont. Anna Beth continued her nursing career at Springfield Hospital in Springfield Vermont where she worked in various capacities from Night Relief Supervisor (where for many years she worked the 11 pm to 7 am shift and was still always there for breakfast before we went to school and getting dinner ready when we came home in the afternoon!!), Assistant Day Supervisor, and manager of the Oncology Clinic. retiring in 1994 after 25 years of helping thousands of patients. Anna Beth was devoted to her family, her faith, and her community in Vermont. In their retirement years, Anna Beth and Edward enjoyed summer vacations in York, Maine and several years after Edward’s death, she made the decision to leave her Vermont home of 40 years to move to Maine to be close to Elisabeth and her grandsons, William and Benjamin Herold-Porter who had previously moved there in 2006. She lived in Meetinghouse Village in Kittery, Maine for 4 years and then as dementia became part of her life moved in with her family in Biddeford Maine. Her last years were spent in private memory care facilities including The Landing at Saco Bay in Saco Maine where she passed away. Our many thanks go to those individual caregivers who provided compassionate and skilled care for her and the other patients in those facilities. Dementia is a hard and complicated disease, but Anna Beth navigated her journey with the faith and grace she showed throughout her life. She enjoyed being with her family in Maine, spending time by the ocean and black raspberry ice cream! She loved to read, even when that was finally reduced to children’s picture books. Once she accepted having to use a walker, she spent hours on journeys throughout the facility and was always the last one to leave the dining room as she continued to enjoy her food until her last few days. Anna Beth leaves behind her daughter Elisabeth and grandsons Bill and Ben in Maine; son David and family in Vermont, her extended Petitfils and Gill family in Texas who, although she saw them infrequently, were always in her thoughts and prayers and all those whose lives she touched throughout her nursing career, her faith journey, and her belief in putting others needs first. To try and put into words my mother’s life is impossible. It was not a life of momentous achievements or accolades, of monetary wealth or material goods. Instead, it was a life of love and devotion to her family and friends, the hard work needed to accomplish goals; her faith in knowing there is a reason for all of this and the immense gratitude for all she had. In these most important ways, she had an amazing life, and she will be deeply missed. “Drop a pebble in the water: just a splash, and it is gone;
But there’s half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea.
And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.”
James W. Foley, 1911. If you would like to share this with other family and friends, please visit https://www.autumngreenfuneralhome.com /obituaries. Arrangements are entrusted to Bibber Memorial Chapel at Autumn Green, in Alfred.