Anita Gram Berry

Anita was a wonderfully talented woman whose life was filled with surprises. As a child and with her siblings, she was removed from a disadvantaged background and, as a ward of the state, stayed fourteen years in an orphanage. After graduating from high school, she continued into college where she wed a Sailor who believed in the covenant of marriage, a man who loved her exclusively. They reared four wonderful children while moving from station to station. Anita’s many talents included artistry, music and genealogy, the latter contributing to reuniting with siblings adopted out of her family. Her story, below, is fascinating.

As World War II raged in other parts of the world, on February 6, 1943, a minor miracle was happening as a mother, Opal Gram, was giving birth to whom we later found out was her second daughter, Anita. Dallas, Texas, weather was a mild 67 degrees.

Anita’s mother, Opal Cameron Gram, was a housewife with many physical handicaps and illnesses. Anita’s father, Emil Einer Gram, was an impoverished immigrant from Denmark who worked many low-paying jobs in order to care for his wife and preserve his family. Anita’s siblings consisted of an older brother, Emil, and two younger sisters, Vickie and Mary Ellen. With her mother’s illnesses, the parents couldn’t care for the expanding household, and consequently the children were made wards of the state of Texas. A younger brother, Paul, was adopted out of the family. Much later in life, Anita would find out about yet another older sister, Pauline, who likewise had been adopted out. More on these siblings later.

As a ward, Anita spent the next fourteen years of her life at St. Joseph Home for Girls, in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, operated by Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Her younger sisters joined her. Every Sunday, her father attended visiting hours in a loving attempt to keep his family together despite her mother’s illnesses, reinforcing loyalty and continual love between all, insisting that if adopted his girls would always remain together. On rare occasions, perhaps a holiday, Anita could return home to her parents for a short visit, thereafter returning to St. Joseph’s, where her routine was split between school and regimented life. Exceptions were outings with other girls to events such as the Texas State Fair, or maybe a movie. At that home, a routine evolved with a morning Mass, chores, school, chores, and enforced dormitory bedtime. Older girls were given more privileges, which to an outsider were minor. Her school prom was an arranged date to a boy who would later become a priest. Both were scared, and communication between them was limited to very few words. Her prom dress was gorgeous, handmade.

She graduated from high school with scant ideas as to what she wanted to do in life. Maybe nursing. Where would she go? What would she do? Her older brother Emil had graduated from high school several years prior, and was now a Navy pilot stationed at North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego, California. With her younger sisters, Anita spent the summer of 1962 with Emil and his wife Susan. In the fall, she enrolled in San Diego City College, still unsure of potential career choices.

Curiously, in a biology class, the professor was a Dr. Roach, a research pioneer in the unique biochemistry substance called deoxyribonucleic acid, and this term was sprinkled throughout each of his lectures. Each organism was unique, with an identity different from, and the sum of, its parents. When the semester ended, she thought that she would have absolutely no use for this genetic material, which had an acronym of DNA. Nowadays it is found on almost every genealogy site and crime show because of its extreme accuracy to a person’s matchless identity.

In that same class, she met her future husband, William Berry, who fell in love with her. They married on April 6, 1963, in a small ceremony at All Souls Episcopal Church, San Diego. Their marriage was renewed at Roman Catholic masses at their eighth, 25th and 50th anniversaries. Over the next 27 years, her husband’s Navy career on many ships took her to Navy bases all over the country: Illinois, New Jersey and Virginia, with most locations in California. He specialized in fire control, the math needed to accurately aim ordnance against an enemy at great distance, and rose through the ranks, was commissioned, and eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Her husband was away on several deployments to the Western Pacific and South America, during which Anita served as a single parent to four children. Her children are:

- Michael Paul Berry (1963), Chief Warrant Officer (United States Marine Corps, Ret.), technical project manager, Virginia farmer;

- Carol Marie Berry (1965), Principal caregiver through Anita’s repeated bouts of cancer, discussed below, San Diego;

- Mark Stephen Berry (1967), Electronic Technician (United States Navy). fiber optics specialist, programmer for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Texas; and

- Cheryn Lyn Berry (1970), radiology services, CASC K12 school system, South Carolina.

Eventually her children would give her five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

However, there is much more to the story. She became an artist in several media, from early crochet to videography. She joined the choir at Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala in 1975, and had been an alto singer ever since.

This church is the oldest Mission in California, established in the year 1769 by Fr. Junipero Serra. Over time, she has visited each of the 21 “Spanish” Missions that ranged northward to Sonoma, California, a one-day-horseback-ride distance in-between. The choir has sung at many of these, using more modern transportation.

The choir grew in size and repertoire, incorporating music from classical to contemporary. Teens from choir members joined, and relished in the extended family atmosphere where, in many cases, Anita’s gentle presence served as yet another parent: the village rearing the children. Some have returned to the choir as adults with strong music backgrounds, remembering their roots.

The choir sang at the 1988 Easter Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, Italy, presided by the pope, now known as Saint John Paul II. The following Wednesday was April 6, 1988, her 25th wedding anniversary, and at the papal audience she was able to shake hands with this holy man. Later that evening with her husband, she celebrated the anniversary with a sung Mass at a tiny chapel at the home of a Tuscan count.

With her mother-in-law’s death, the decision was made for her husband to obtain military retirement, and to relocate back to San Diego from Virginia into the inherited house of his youth, repairing its legacy problems. He found work as a systems engineer for a defense contractor, retained for the next 31 years. After their Chancellorsville, Virginia, house was sold in April, 1990, Anita returned to the friendship of the choir and immediately found many things to do.

First, the organ at Mission San Diego gave out its last electronic excuse for a music note, and the decision was made to replace it with a pipe organ. Anita was there every day, ensuring that each pipe of the 17-rank device was properly located, a highly technical responsibility, assisting the installation team immeasurably.

Anita assumed duties of organizing the choir music library, which at the time had grown to a disorganized mess of more than 600 different anthems and hymns independent of those furnished annually by the church, many classical selections by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Faure, Handel and others. Her favorites included Ave Maria by Russian composer Rachmaninoff, an arrangement of Now Thank We All Our God by Pachabel, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and several other anthems and hymns in multiple-part harmony. It took many months to provide the library a semblance of order.

Following a destructive fire, St. Michal Church, Poway California was rebuilt with a much larger sanctuary to accommodate expanding population. Gene Regard was music director at both churches. With her experience and dedication, Anita assisted with installing its 34-rank pipe organ and organized its music library. The two choirs shared the same repertoire and merged on some occasions, resulting in a hundred beautiful voices, with Anita’s work providing a stable foundation.

Every year, the Mission choir would provide a gift to the community known as the Candlelight Musical Meditation, two or more evenings before Christmas. These were a combination of Bible readings and music, and drew standing-room-only crowds to experience the message and the wonderful acoustics of the church. Anita’s role in preparation cannot be understated. The choir would be assisted by instrumentalists: brass, strings, percussion, woodwinds, all crammed into the space of a choir loft where the pipe organ had compressed everyone. Yet the presentation was wonderful, with people returning annually.

Anita more than welcomed those friends whose lives had undergone challenges. For example, when she found out about choir member Terry Miller’s problems, she invited her to live with us as a low-cost renter, forever if desired. Terry lived in our house for more than a decade before moving to Torrance, California, to be near her daughter.

In 2000, after realizing that prior recordings of choir music left something to be desired, Anita started her own videography business, AGB Productions, and hundreds of events (concerts, stage productions, school plays, weddings, funerals and more) were produced to her high standards of artistry and sound. Several of these productions were of the choir’s liturgies.

While this was happening, Anita delved into genealogy, in an attempt at first verifying that she had a brother Paul, then turning up any other tidbits that history might reveal. Some were easy, some required contacting distant relatives, others required deep research and detective work. Her memories had shown validity, and shared with known siblings. Finally, her detective work paid off, and she found and united with her brother Paul. He had been given a new name by his adopting parents, Lee Granitz, a Christian Brother of a Catholic teaching order. At first, he was reluctant to find biologic kin, somehow believing this might discredit his adopting parents, but thereafter became accepting and embracing. They were reunited in the late 1980’s, resolving one of the mysteries in Anita’s life. Her oldest son. Michael Paul Berry, had been named in his honor.

Several years later, Anita received a thick package in the mail from a woman who identified herself as Lennie Sutherland, who had done some genealogic research on her own. In the attached letter, she thought she might be a sister. Anita’s granddaughter Jasmine glanced at the attached photograph and declared, “She’s family.” That photograph could have been a twin of Anita’s younger sister, Mary Ellen Fisher. The phone lines must have gotten red hot. Lennie was born in 1930 as Pauline Gram and adopted out of the family, a secret Anita’s parents took to their graves. Somewhat coincidentally, Lennie lived with her husband a mere 67 miles north of San Diego in Laguna Woods, California. The joyous reunification was Anita, her brothers Emil and Lee, and of Lennie; it took place within a week.

Eventually her sisters Vicky Songer and Mary Ellen Fisher would meet this very interesting woman, a college professor who taught physics and chemistry, and whose personality was delightfully indecorous. Anita and her family surprised her with a birthday party in Dallas, where many friends attempted to tell toned-down stories of her behavior to which she provided hilariously explicit supplements. Families quickly accepted her with laughter and love.

This was a story of Anita’s family, torn apart by poverty, reunited as if they had never separated, each gifted with intellect and wisdom, each having successful careers and rearing their own families, brought together by circumstances none might imagine. But it also illustrated their independence and drive. They were always friends, always supportive, and always dedicated to both the duties of the day and to each other. Anita’s unusual childhood never detracted from the loving and intelligent woman she had become, and contributed to the beauty of the talents she exhibited.

In 2017, Anita was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and underwent a hysterectomy followed by chemotherapy, one session every few weeks for several months. The cancer appeared to relapse, then recurred again, resulting in another multi-month session. She went through four such periods, each with debilitating results and weakness, with a declaration at the end of each that she was cancer free. And the beauty of her work rekindled until another periodic report revealed recurrence. Anita’s daughter Carol was invaluable over that five-year period, providing constant daily care to Anita’s weakened body, assisting with appointment scheduling, asking the right questions, and coordinating with a weekly visiting nurse.

At the end, the cancer violently attacked her abdominal wall. The family was summoned. She entered at-home hospice and passed away in her sleep a few mornings later, surrounded by the love of her children and grandchildren, who were invaluable in assisting Anita’s comfort despite constant pain. One grandchild, Savannah Jacobs, was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry. Another, Brittany Dekorrez, had CNA, CPT, Duola, MA, and was a nursing candidate. A third granddaughter with many artistic talents, Jasmine Chanberry, visited with her family and provided one of Anita’s most grateful moments, holding her 7-week-old great-granddaughter for the first time, with a smile that lit up the room. Two grandsons, Jarrad Grider (manager of several Indianapolis restaurants) and Troy Decatur (high school student) couldn’t attend.

Anita leaves behind several legacies. Her marriage to her loving husband William continued for more than 59 years, and included his arduous periods of his Navy deployments where she had to assume the role of a single parent. Her four children are best friends. Her genealogy research was extensive and revealed family histories previously hidden, an interest since inherited by her granddaughter Brittany Dekorrez. Her support of the Mission Choir, both vocal and administrative, has yielded many benefits, such that under the continuing direction of Gene Regard, it is often called to events way outside the boundaries of the church. Her imprint on two churches remains. She completed hundreds of video productions. Her knowledge and wisdom are sorely missed.

Beyond that, she cultivated the love of those both within and outside her family. She served as a comfort to many who had experienced tragedy. She will be missed by many, as her love continues to exist in the hearts of those left behind.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.goodbodymortuary.com for the Berry family.