Anna Marie Helen Blume

Anna Marie Helen Johanna was born to George and Mary Alice Klenke on April 8, 1931, in Spearville, Kansas, growing up on their homestead at the height of the Dust Bowl. Her farming roots cultivated a lifelong love of family, hard work, and wonder at God’s creation, and she could always recall childhood on the west Kansas plains in vivid detail.

Anna Marie was baptized and confirmed at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Windhorst, Kansas, which her father helped build, and received First Communion at St. Mary’s Church in Newton, Kansas. She graduated from Windhorst Church High School in 1949 where she played the organ for daily mass, her siblings pumping the bellows. After her family moved west in 1950, she remained in Kansas to earn a diploma from St. Joseph School of Nursing in Wichita where met her future husband, Fred “Dan” Blume while he was hospitalized. Upon discharge, Dan told his mother, “Mom, that’s the girl I’m going to marry,” and called Anna Marie “his angel.” They were married on July 19, 1952 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Wichita, and raised Danny (Gail) and Leslie (Eric), before following her parents, brothers and sister, (Bob, Don, Martin and Jane) to the Willamette Valley in 1956. They welcomed three more children—Doug, Cathy (Darren), and Diana (Jim)—and lived in Eugene for nearly seventy years as their family grew to include 11 grandchildren and 24 great-children. 

Anna Marie was a devoted homemaker before returning to nursing at The Eugene Clinic in 1975, retiring from Sacred Heart Hospital in 1993. Grandchildren were the center of Anna Marie and Dan’s attention in retirement, and they lavished them with pure love and pride, attending school concerts, sporting events, graduations, and weddings near and far. In 1997, they made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, Fatima, and Medjugorje, a highlight of their spiritual lives. Anna Marie was active at St. Mary’s Catholic Church with the Catholic Daughters and Altar Society. She enjoyed crafting, cooking, keeping family up to date on email, and tending her garden on Taylor Street, where no weed stood a chance at the hands of a Kansas farm girl. She always wrote thank-you notes, and in later years made expert use of texting, complete with emojis.  

Anna Marie and Dan’s Catholic faith was central to the generosity they extended to everyone they met, enriched by daily mass, midnight hours in Perpetual Adoration, and road trip Rosaries. Prayer was a constant part of Anna Marie’s day—offering litanies on neighborhood walks and blessing a long list of family members individually by name every night. Her brother Bob and son-in-law Jim preceded her in death, and she was reunited with her beloved husband Dan after passing peacefully at home the morning of Sunday, September 7th, 2025, her eldest grandson at her bedside. Anna Marie will be greatly missed; her farm roots, abiding faith in Jesus’ resurrection, and generous love of family will extend for generations.