Ann-Lillian Schell

Mar 15, 1940 -

Nov 23, 2022

Ann-Lillian Schell's first job was in New York City, where she walked to work in Manhattan wearing trim suits, a stylish hat, white gloves and heels.

She wore warmer gear to walk the trapline maintained by her husband, Don Schell, when she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1964 to marry the fellow New Englander. In Alaska, she found the home of her heart. From Utqiagvik to Kasilof, she loved this state and its people, and considered its wildflowers her old friends.

Ann-Lillian passed away peacefully, at age 82, on Nov. 23, 2022, with her family by her side.

The professionals at Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, Alaska, provided excellent care in her final days and throughout her many visits in recent years, as well as staff at Central Peninsula Internal Medicine and Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.

Born on March 15, 1940, in Boston, Mass., to Sam and Lillian Crowell, she grew up around the country at her dad's Navy posts before graduating from the New Bedford Institute of Technology with a degree in textile design.

She and Don both did their graduate studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For her master's, in 1968 Ann-Lillian helped launch the Oomingmak cooperative, the cottage industry knitting quiviut, musk ox underfur, in remote Alaska communities. The co-op continues to thrive today.

During the Fairbanks flood of 1967, a newspaper photo of her slinging sandbags with a smile brought appreciative letters from across the country, including a marriage proposal.

She worked as a flight attendant for Wein Air Alaska before becoming a geologic cartographer for the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, where she carefully mapped the state's minerals for decades.

She and Don built a log cabin, and had a large garden that provided all the vegetables they and their daughter ate all winter. When they built a house, she drafted the blueprints, saving the couple thousands of dollars.

For many years, she volunteered with the Fairbanks Community Food Bank and served in Civil Air Patrol.

In 1999, she retired to the Kenai Peninsula.

A lifelong creative, she designed and sewed one-of-a-kind quilts, vests, jackets, dresses and other wearable art; she painted detailed botanical watercolors, and experimented with abstract techniques and mixed media.

Ann-Lillian's eye for color and design also found expression in her gardens, flower arrangements, nail polish and clothing choices. She liked to highlight one main color per month.

A vibrant, loving, clean-living woman with a phenomenally positive attitude and graceful faith, she survived cancer and various other health challenges long past professional predictions. A special shout-out goes to Dr. Menaker for operating on her pancreatic cancer. Her gold-medal optimism allowed her to be grateful for having breast cancer first, because it served as training for pancreatic cancer treatment. When she got an unrelated breast cancer again, she took that in stride too.

She enjoyed traveling the world with quilting friends and her family, from Iceland to Portugal to New Zealand and many countries in between. Highlights included caving and hiking Mayan ruins in Belize, window shopping haute couture in Paris and visiting La Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona.

She is survived by her brother, Sam Crowell; five sisters, Jo-Nancy Gunn, Marcia Violante, Deborah Berthiaume, Errica Stevens and Krickett Merrill and their families; daughter, Sarana Schell; grandson, Kai Davids Schell; fellow congregants at Kenai Fellowship; and many wonderful art and garden and community friends.