Ann Vivian

1930 - 2015

Vivian, Ann Zanier Downs Lane



Zanier Downs Vivian, age 85, passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of Monday, November 23, 2015 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, She was born Ann Zanier Downs on the first day of spring, March 20, 1930, to Kathleen Sue Burnette Downs and James Bernice Downs. As an only child, her friends were the deep and tangled pine woods, the branch that ran through the property, and the many birds and animals that lived there. Her love of nature stayed with her throughout her life. She was a child of the best of Georgia, maintaining the social graces without carrying a trace of racism within her.

She graduated from Robert E. Lee High School and briefly attended the University of Georgia before cutting loose and heading cross country to complete her bachelor's degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. While there, and during the months she spent at the 76 Ranch in Willcox, Arizona, she developed her lifelong love of the cultures of Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and American Cowboys. She also developed strong friendships that would last throughout her life.

She then earned her Master's Degree in Library Science from the University of Illinois, which introduced her to an entirely different world. She worked as a reference librarian in the aeronautical engineering library at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she met her first husband, Thomas Benjamin Lane. Together they moved to Albuquerque, briefly, and then to Livermore, California to start their family. While there, Zanier worked for the library at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In 1967, they returned to Albuquerque, where they found a special house on a hillside above a meadow. For a period, Zanier spent her efforts on volunteer work for the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, the Santa Fe Opera, and her Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority. When her marriage ended, however, she returned to work as a science and engineering reference librarian at the UNM Zimmerman Library, where many knew her by her professional name of Zanier Downs Lane. She served as president of the Special Libraries Association and was instrumental in the establishment of the UNM Science and Engineering Library.

In 1979 she began a new and fulfilling part of her life when she married Richard Weatherby Vivian. His dedication to her was remarkable, and together they traveled, maintained the house as a magnet for wild birds and animals, hosted parties, and attended symphonies, operas and other events. Throughout, Zanier retained her southern accent and her southern girl love of nature and openness and consideration of other people, regardless of background. She simply saw the commonalities among people, not their differences.

Zanier is survived by her devoted and much appreciated and much loved husband of 36 years, Richard Weatherby Vivian; her two sons, Benjamin Downs Lane and Thomas Adamson ("Tad") Lane; and her step-children, Barbara Vivian Simms and her husband John Simms, Bonnie Vivian Martinez and her husband Peter Martinez, and John Vivian and his wife Sue; along with a number of step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, December 1, 2015, 4:00 p.m. at UNM Chapel. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Panthera for Big Cat Conservation www.panthera.org and the Southern Poverty Law Center at www.splcenter.org. Arrangements are being handled by French Mortuary.