Anita Margaret Koller

Anita passed suddenly into eternal life on June 27, 2025, after being diagnosed two days earlier with acute leukemia.

She was born Anita Margaret Keller in Denver Colorado on May 26, 1947, to her father John Patrick (“Jack”) Keller and her mother Sarah Gertrude (“Trudy”) Keller (nee Weisthal). At the age of 2, the family moved to southern California, living in and around the Los Angeles area, and especially the San Gabriel valley.

She began piano lessons at the age of six, and by the time she was nine she was playing in recitals and won a certificate of merit from the Hollywood Bowl. Years later, she herself would become a piano teacher, and she was so successful, that in the eight years she taught, she never had to advertise to get students. All came by word of mouth. She was also an accomplished singer and sang in church choirs for many years. When Saint Pope John Paul II came to Los Angeles in 1987, Anita was selected to sing in the Papal Choir.

After graduating from Bishop Amat High School in 1965, Anita embarked on a career in the medical field as a neurodiagnostic technician performing tests such as EEGs on patients and supporting the work of doctors at UCLA and Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, among others. She remained in that field for over 20 years. Her experience in this field allowed Anita to acquire and develop a clinical mindset which would prove very useful in dealing with her own health issues in later years.

Yet despite her talent and a successful career, she knew something was missing. She had been away from the Church and her Catholic faith for several years, when late one evening in February 1974, she happened upon a broadcast of evangelical preacher Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. She became so convicted of her sins and the need for the saving love and grace of God, that she gave her heart to Jesus Christ that night. She had come home, and from that time onward, Jesus became and would remain the love and center of her life.

Shortly thereafter, she began attending charismatic prayer meetings at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. There she encountered a group of intentional disciples who were interested in living the Christian life in covenanted personal relationships with one another in the charismatic power of the Holy Spirit as a specific Christian community. In that community, known originally as City of the Angels and now as City of the Lord, Anita found formation as a disciple in the Christian life, a sure path to personal holiness, and love and deep friendship in her relationships. She served in various women sharing groups and particularly in music ministry, serving in worship and praise during community prayer meetings. She made her covenant to the community in 1978.

Anita married her husband Bill Koller on October 27, 1984. Bill joined the community in October of 1982. Their wedding was somewhat unique. Anita changed one letter of her last name (from an “e” to an “o”). Before large wedding parties became common, their wedding featured 12 people on each side. After the Mass, the wedding party walked from the church back to their neighborhood where the reception took place. During the reception, several men performed the bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof, and the bride and groom were hoisted up in the air in the chairs they sat in.

She gave birth to their son Luke on April 1, 1986. Luke was born two and a half months early. When it looked for a time that Luke would not survive, the community organized a 24-hour intercessory prayer vigil. From the moment it started, Luke began to rally. He will turn 40 next year.

In the fall of 1987, Anita began feeling ill. She had serious health issues almost from the time she was born, including a significant case of sepsis. Through the kindness and intervention of Bill’s boss at the time, attorney David Parker, Anita saw a doctor who diagnosed her with the Epstein Barr virus. This was the gateway virus that subjected her to a wide variety of autoimmune illnesses and symptoms which plagued her for the next 38 years.

Eventually diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (“MECFS”), by 2020, Anita had become a shut in. Still, she persevered. She prayed for two to four hours a day, which included adoration, daily Mass, and a rosary in the evening with Bill. She continued to serve and care for Bill faithfully.

The last week of her life moved normally until the middle of the week. She went to the emergency room after experiencing pressure moving all the way up her back. After x-rays and blood tests, she was told she had acute leukemia, the same disease that took the life of her mother and younger sister, Joan.

Returning home, Anita told Bill the news and began planning for in-home hospice care. That night, attempting to get into bed, she fell, and was taken back to the emergency room. Friday morning, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Bill received a call telling him that Anita was not doing well, breathing rapidly, with a white blood cell count higher than the previous night. He was told she could die within the next six hours. She succumbed approximately two hours later.

Her heart was now enfolded into the heart of Jesus, two hearts beating in communion, in the fire of divine love for all eternity.

She is survived by her husband, Bill; their son, Luke; her sisters Margaret (Dave) and Charlotte, her brother Chris (Linette), her nephews Jack, Christopher, Andrew, and Matthew, and her nieces Ann Marie Holm, and Jo Marie Munnich (Ed).