Person:Annie Ahrens (1)

SS N -- 264-41-4693 Issued FL (1973)

A woman of prayer!! Annie was converted to Christ as teenager through conversion of her mother. She married the young dairy deliveryman who came to her mother’s house, Charlie Wackes. Her faith in Christ was first nurtured by a relationship with the Zion, Illinois movement. She then became involved with Bethel Tempel in Philadelphia, where she raised her children. Annie experienced occasions of physical healing, both for herself and for her chidlren. One story she recounted was on the occasion of a severe fever in her youngest child, Paul. She laid him on the living room couch and determined to pray over him until he was delivered. During her prayer she heard her deceased mother behind her call her name, asking her to turn around and come to her. Annie was still grieving over the recent death of her mother and wanted desperately to turn and embrace her mother. She realized, she said, that this was a temptation from Satan, seeking to break her concentration in prayer over her son. “It was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” she said, “to ignore my mother and to continue in prayer.” By morning her son was well. She prayed daily for all of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. After the death of her husband, Annie moved to Ft. Lauderdale, FL to be near her sons Paul, Henry, and Charles, and daughter Easter. After living in her own home in Wilton Manors on Wilton Drive, she later moved to John Knox Village and shared a villa with her daughter Easter. Later both had to move to assisted living quarters where eventually Annie died. She was a whit, comic, filled with laughter, and instigator of family fun. At dinner she would dip her napkin in her water or iced tea and start a spit ball fight across the table with grandchildren, to the dismay of the hostess. Christmas parties degenerated into fights of balled up wrapping paper thrown across the room, with Annie usually the instigator. She was a woman who read and studied the Scriptures and witnessed for Christ whenever the opportunity presented itself. At Knox Village she was picked up daily by the bus of First Baptist Church in Pompano Beach, FL. They would encourage her to join the church, but always the conversation turned to baptism. Knowing that she had been baptized as a child in the Lutheran Church, they would insist on rebaptism. She never did join that church, even though worshipping there for years. “I was baptized once as to the Lord, and refuse to be baptized again to please man,” she would always respond. Annie was a large woman, tall, large boned. She weighed close to 200 pounds for much of her life. She had diabetes, and had poor vision latter in life. She loved to garden, loved her rose bushes, hibiscus, African violets, morning glories, and her rocking chair, given to grandson, Ken after her death.

1. ↑ R. Jay Kraer Funeral Home, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Officiated by grandson, Dr. Ken Wackes, associate minister, Coral Ridge Presb. Church, Ft. Lauderdale.