Ann Leavitt Reno

Ann Leavitt Reno, 90, died peacefully Friday, May 16 in Escondido, California. She is
survived by her three children and six grandchildren:
Eileen Reno Maurer, her husband Wade Maurer, and grandchildren Samanna Maurer and
Cole Maurer;
Susanne Reno, her husband Thaddeus Thacker, and grandchildren Lilly Thacker and
Delaney Thacker;
Frank Reno, his wife Claudia Reno, and grandchildren Zita Anne Reno and Leavitt Reno.
Ann was the daughter of John and Gladys Leavitt and was born at home in Dolores,
Colorado on March 1, 1935. She was preceded in death by her siblings; Nora Alice Mosher,
John Adams Leavitt, and Hazel Star Stevens.
Her family lived in various small towns in the Four Corners area including Lewis, Mancos,
Durango and Cortez. During the Depression, their father John worked for the WPA and for a
summer they lived in a tent along a creek in A-Piece-of-Timber, an area two or three miles
from Cortez. Native Americans would drive their wagons up to that area in the evening and
Ann and her siblings would crawl around in the timber and watch them doing their dances.
Later they moved to Sylvan and their father was a teacher in a small rural school. There
was no place to live near the school, so their family set up two tents with wooden floors, one
with a coal stove for cooking and another tent for sleeping, and lived in those tents through
the school year, including the Colorado winter. Brrrr!
Ann always loved animals and the assorted dogs and cats in her childhood and adulthood
loved her back. Her family even had a horse for a while and she and her sister Nora rode
“Ole Bill” around pastures and areas of desert scrub brush near their home in southwest
Colorado. Nora and Ann were also known to “borrow” a neighbor’s horse for adventures as
well.
Ann graduated from Cortez High School in 1952. She received a Boettcher scholarship
and enrolled in University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. She met her future husband Sam
Reno there, where they both worked in the dining hall together.
Ann married Sam Reno in Salida, Colorado on August 4, 1956 and finished her final year
of college. The following year, Ann and Sam moved to La Salle, Colorado and Sam taught
business courses at the high school there. At the end of the year, Sam was drafted into the
Army and in November 1958, he was deployed to Korea where he served until November
1959.
While Sam was in Korea, Ann moved back to Cortez to live with her parents. During that
time, she had a job in the Montezuma County office where her father had been elected as
County Clerk. When Sam had a leave from Korea, Ann was able to fly to Japan (on a prop
plane!) to meet Sam and they spent a month together in Japan…one of the travel highlights
of her life.
Once Sam’s deployment was over, he was stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs
and Ann moved there to live. They lived in an apartment above the Public Service for a year,
until they moved to Alamosa, Colorado where Sam had been hired as a teacher at Alamosa
High School. They bought their first home with the GI Bill for $11,000. Daughter Eileen was
born in 1960, followed by daughter Susanne in 1963 and son Frank in 1964.
In 1966, they moved to Kearney, Nebraska and both became teachers at Kearney State
College, a small liberal arts college. Ann earned her Masters degree, then later went to
school for banking and transitioned to managing Kearney Federal Credit Union. They
attended all of their children’s sporting events, band concerts, and school activities. During

the summers in Nebraska, the family went swimming in sandpits outside of town or water-
skied at nearby Cottonmill Lake almost every day.
When Sam and Ann retired, they constructed a home on Johnson Lake in Lexington,
Nebraska and lived there full time. Each summer, their 3 adult children along with their
families, including all six grandchildren, would visit there and go fishing, husk fresh corn, take
turns water-skiing or riding an innertube behind the boat, and pick fruit, vegetables and
flowers in Grandma Ann’s garden, often not coming in for dinner until 8 or 9 in the evening
due to the light of long summer days.
Sam and Ann also transitioned to living in California during the Nebraska winters, finding
their way to a wonderful community at Champagne Village in Escondido, CA. In 2013, they
moved to California to live there year-round.
They loved living at Champagne Village and their children and grandchildren often joined
them in the pool, down by the creek near the dog park, and at village parties and get-
togethers. Sam and Ann played bridge and participated in other activities, making friends
along the way. Sam died in August 2019, and Ann continued to enjoy her life there with her
many good friends. Five or six days a week, she went down to the pool to walk 30 or 40
minutes and she and her “pool friends” had lots of laughs and good conversation in the hot
tub.
She tended to her backyard garden and continued to grow herbs and vegetables. She
had roses along her driveway and an eclectic mix of succulents in her front yard. She also
conscientiously picked her orange, grapefruit and Asian pear trees and gifted bags of fruit to
others.
She was hospitalized for more than two weeks in October due to complications from
COPD, and afterwards she moved to Brookdale San Marcos Assisted Living. Her friends
from Champagne Village came and visited her at Brookdale, or took her to lunch, and she still
joined them at the pool on Fridays when she could. She was just beginning to feel at home at
Brookdale, and was making new friends with people there too. She also liked meeting dogs
belonging to residents at Brookdale and always carried dog treats with her to share when she
walked around. She especially enjoyed going to Arts & Crafts, Painting, the weekly Jeopardy
contest, and the Gardening Club.
She was loved by family and friends. She will be missed.

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