Ann Nordquist Luce

Ann was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts to Lawrence and Patricia Nordquist, and the family was rounded out by the births of her brothers Eric and Ted. From Massachusetts, the family moved to South Carolina, and then to Florida in the 1970s. Once in Florida, she met her future wonderful husband, Kevin, and they were married in 1975. In 1982, Kevin and Ann welcomed their amazing daughter, Melody, and in 1984 they welcomed their fantastic son, Thomas.

Ann’s employment was with a handful of companies, but she ultimately worked with her family business as bookkeeper and head of HR after her mother passed away.

Work is boring, though. Her accomplishments in life were many and awe inspiring. She was youth education leader for Unity of Clearwater church for more than 20 years. She was an inspiration and mentor to many while at Unity, and became an ordained minister of the faith to continue the work that she found important and life-changing.

She learned the Hebrew language just because she could. She found joy in pointing out grammar and spelling errors in the newspaper, but not in a jerk-ish way. She would recite “Caesar” in Latin when she came out of anesthesia to make sure that her mind was still straight; the bonus being she could scare her nurses, none of whom spoke Latin, into thinking something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

She worked with the YMCA on the creation of the branch at Highpoint. She went camping with her family, pregnant with her second child, without complaint. She escaped a burning vehicle with her husband and first child, and made a new headliner for the car and kept driving it until the wheels fell off. She sang when she thought no one was listening, and had a beautiful voice. She wrote new joy songs for Children’s Ministry at Unity that were hip and what all the cool kids sang. She willingly went to the beach once for her daughter’s wedding, and made appetizer platters in a single night when the occasion called for it.

She loved her family and her friends, and if you got on her wrong side, or the wrong side of her friends, that was your issue to deal with, and you would realize the error of your ways when she was done speaking with you. Her husband had a running “melon” list for all of her dreams, and her children found joy in pronouncing things incorrectly just to irritate her.

She will be missed, with all of the superfluous words that she would know to use in this moment.