Ann Gelber Davidson

March  3rd, 1938 November  13th, 2024
Ann Gelber Davidson

Remembering Ann

Ann Davidson passed away on November 13, 2024, shortly after an unexpected diagnosis of late-stage pancreatic cancer. She was a cherished member of a large community of family and friends, birders, writers, hikers, caregivers and artists, and she will be sorely missed by many. We will be in touch with details about a memorial gathering, which will likely take place sometime in the first half of 2025. In the meantime, we invite you to share your messages, memories and photos of Ann below. 

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Memory wall

Please share your messages to or memories of Ann


December 10, 2024
I never had an interaction with Ann that wasn't positive, affirming and humorous, and I've never met anyone who did. Is there a better legacy?
Danny Nasatir
December 8, 2024
Ann Davidson was a great second parent (I don’t know if that’s a thing, but Ann was that), and friend.

I love cooking. My memory is jammed with all these simple and exotic cooking details that were sponsored by Ann in her kitchen. I learned how to make an omelette. I debated different methods of garlic chopping and types of garlic presses. Ben and I explored all the recipes in a great cookbook that Ann probably bought The Vegetarian Epicure.

Ann was a woman of many talents. I think she would made Epicurius proud! Mazeltoff!
Matthew Harris
December 6, 2024
Ann was a pivotal figure in my life. We met in autobiography class at Foothill College when I was 29 and she brought me to join her writing group, Monday Night Writers, with whom I wrote and celebrated the publishing of my first book Diamonds In My Pocket. She was also a PFLAG mom and speaker with whom I shared the podium. When she wrote her book on her husband’s Alzheimers she went all the way to Japan to speak to a conference on the topic. She helped me navigate my mother’s dementia. We enjoyed hiking together when her peers could no longer keep up with her. We continued to have pivotal conversations one of which I wrote into my last book The Unexpected Penis: Conversations On The Gender Trail, chapter two. Her quick departure has left a huge hole in our writing group. I still had things I wanted to talk to her about even to disagree about. She lives on vividly in my mind and in all the lives she touched so active was she in her many communities.
Amanda Kovattana
December 2, 2024
We called each other sister. We were the same age, born within three days of each other. We met when we had both just turned fifty, at a women’s spring writing retreat at Westerbeke Ranch, a gathering place surrounded by oak woodland just out of Sonoma, CA. I had arrived earlier in the afternoon and found a vacant bed in a long enclosed porch in one of the cabins. Later a small group arrived, Ann among them, to take up other beds on the porch. It turned out that we were all from Palo Alto. Two or three knew each other, and had recently started to meet and critique each others’ writing. They promptly invited other porch-mates to join them once we all returned home.

That for me was the start of a long friendship with Ann and the other Monday Writers, as we called ourselves. I established a small press to publish Ann’s first book, "Modified Radical," a collection of poems about her breast cancer experience. From time to time Connie, another member of the group, would invite the group to her beach house at Pajaro Dunes, where we would write, take longs walks, and engage in deep conversations. It was during these times that Ann and I drew close. Even after I retired and moved to Mendocino, we stayed in touch through cards, emails, and occasional reunions of the Monday Writers group.

Thinking now of her death, I recall a poem that resulted from one of our early morning walks. I dedicate it now to her memory.


Meeting Death in the Early Morning

Pebbles dot the beach at water’s edge.
Their shadows are those of standing stones.
Scarves of sand wrap their bases
and spread seaward.

Waves lick a vertebra, yellow-brown,
that in low light resembles a skull.
Strange how a face
carries more freight of mortality
than the broken clam shells and sand dollars
under my feet.

Willets call to each other
as they drill the suddenly still back-wash
popping with sand-crab vents.
The message I intercept warns of time passing
and receding tides.

Maureen Eppstein

First published in Avocet: A Journal of
Nature Poems, Winter 1998

Maureen Eppstein
December 1, 2024
From Anne Prescott.. favorite scenes from P-Flag, Joanie's and Raging Grannies
Jeff Davidson
December 1, 2024
Ann was a very nice and kindhearted person , I was her gardener for over 10 years we would always talk about my children and she gave the best advice, I will always remember her.
Tony Delgado
November 30, 2024
Ann had a remarkable ability to turn life’s negatives into positive experiences for herself and those around her. I will always be grateful for our many years of connection and deep friendship
Bernie Roth
November 30, 2024
I dearly loved Ann.
She was my muse,
my soulmate, my best friend.
Her death has left a huge hole in my life…
Ruth Roth
November 30, 2024
I am so deeply sorry to read of Ann’s death. I have known her for many years, going back to our children’s time in elementary school. I would meet her from time to time, at protest meetings or in grocery stores, and would catch up with our latest family news. My deepest condolences to the whole family.
Hilda gould
November 30, 2024
I remember a lovely woman from my childhood, who always welcomed me me into her house. This world will be a much smaller place without her. Let us celebrate the time we all crossed apths on this earth.
Matthew G Riggs
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