Annette Fashing

Annette Fashing, 88, of Sturgeon died March 14, 2025, surrounded by family and loved ones.
Visitation will be Wednesday, March 19, 2025, from 5:00 – 7:00 PM at Fenton-Kendrick Funeral Home in Centralia. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held 11:00 AM, Thursday, March 20, 2025, at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Centralia. Graveside services will be later for immediate family.
Anette was a music minister at Holy Spirit Catholic church and a reading teacher for grade school students and combined the two by bringing her guitar to school and putting the reading lessons to song. Annette is responsible for thousands of students being able to read from her calling to teach for decades in Chicago and at Chance Elementary School in Centralia.
Annette's first love was praising God in song. This love of music helped her energize students to participate and inspired children to read. She also mentored many to play piano and organ and to become music ministers in various churches.
Anette and Ed were married for 63 years. They moved from Chicago when they purchased their Missouri farm in 1973. Annette used her biology degree from Mundelein to improve the genetics of their Simmental herd.
Annette is survived by her five children, Anita (Jerry), Mary (Tony), Edward (Karen), James (Charla), John (Daphne) and twelve grandchildren, Christine, Julie, Bryan, Elissa, Samantha, Kaleb, Rachel, Emma, Chase, Dustin, Jacob and Jordan. Annette has thirteen great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. She is also survived by her younger sister, Ardie.
Annette was preceded in death by her husband, Edward, sister, Alane and parents Alvin and Gertrude. Memorial donations are suggested to the music program at Holy Spirit Catholic Church and may be sent in care of Fenton-Kendrick Funeral Home, 104 S. Collier St. Centralia, MO 65240.
Eulogy for Annette Fashing by Anita Kiska
Thank you, Father Mike for the perfect words about our mom! Your depiction of her as a Rock Star is pretty accurate!
Our Mom was an imperfect person. But she was perfect in so many ways! She showed that imperfect people like EVERYONE OF us can do great things, even fabulous things if you work hard at it and depend on our Almighty God.
Our mom raised fruit flies in the kitchen in our Chicago home - on purpose!! Now why would anyone do that? Well it was because the praying mantises they were raising in the kitchen window needed to eat!
And Edward reminded me about how Mom would entertain us with her piano playing! We were mesmerized by her playing extravagant and complicated piano pieces we loved. We were convinced no one could play the piano better than our Mom! She played many instruments! She was amazing! But - if you wanted a mom that would let you take the easy way out? Think again! Her motto was, you can do it! Stick to it! There were no easy outs with her!
I think back about how Mom didn't want to move out of the city of Chicago, but then Oh how they adapted to their life on the farm! Mom and Dad planted 80 fruit trees in the orchard right after moving here. They started raising cattle and Mom used her genetic training from her Mundelein biology degree so she and Mary spent many hours looking at the genetic details of Simmental sires so they could enhance the quality of our herd! They both even learned how to artificially inseminate cattle!
But RAISING cattle was not all fun and games, that's for sure! The winters were the worst when temps got way below, freezing and the water tanks froze up! We would be outside filling tanks with a garden hose and hauling them to the cattle! It was SOOO COLD! And remember moving the cattle more than a mile down the road to the little house pasture? We'd yell Come Boss! Come Boss! And they would come a runnin'! But a few stragglers always wanted to jump the fence into Rush's field. Stressful! So many stories to tell here!
Our mom was someone who served God daily. She knew she was imperfect and needed God. She would say it was the "Human Condition". But Mom wouldn't preach it, she instead showed us how to serve by the way she lived. Teaching kids to read, even the sometimes snotty nose gradeschoolers who thought they could never learn to read, kids saying reading was too hard! So She would encourage them and make learning to read fun by using silly rhymes. She often brought her guitar to class and sang little ditties she wrote for that specific reading lesson.
Music and singing were in her blood! It was her way of praising God!!! But being the Music Minister and playing songs for Mass was her favorite! She would spend hours and hours, preparing each week, picking out songs to match the readings! She would transpose the music and make sure the musicians she was playing with and mentoring knew the songs. She would stay after mass to give guitar lessons right here. She mentored quite a few who have now replaced her in this role. Way to go, Mom!
One of her favorite stories she liked to tell (Yes! Mom told some stories though our dad was the master storyteller) was when she played for the James & John's confirmation. The bishop was here! The kids were in a procession up this aisle, each playing their instruments. She loved that James was playing his trumpet and John was playing his clarinet! Even the bishop commented what a joyous celebration it was. This was Mom's happy place. Helping others to make a joyful noise unto the Lord! Mom mentioned this to me once again, just a few months ago for the umpteenth time. She surely remembered that special day!
We could not take a car ride or family trip where mom and dad were not singing songs in the car! It was the way we rolled! Mom especially like singing rounds.
Some of her favorite songs were:
-Did you feed my cow? yes ma'am
Can you tell me how? Yes Ma'am
What did you feed her? Corn and hay!
What did you feed her? Corn and hay!
-John Jacob JingleHeimer Schmidt, that's my name too! Whenever we go out, the people always shout, singing John Jacob JingleHeimer Schmidt.
- Then the round where we each sang about instrument the violin's singing like lovely singing, and then you had the trumpet, and a clarinet and the drums. Now imagine everyone singing their own instrument all at once! But thank goodness that most of the time we did this, it was in our car, when no one else could hear us! LOL
-When it was time to eat, mom would yell "Eenie Meenie Kai Kai um chow chow um pee wow wow! And we'd answer: aady eedy idy ody udy Yoo-hoo!
- But Mom's favorite round was a hard one:
In a snug little field in a neighborhood park on a beautiful morning of spring. A pert little magpie once asked of a lark if he thought he could teach him to sing. Oh no, said the lark with a comical look as he wiggled and waggled his tail. It would be too much trouble and sorrow, and I know I most surely would fail. For he who won't listen, the art of a teacher defies. But birds who chatter, can never expect to be wise.
Our thoughts wouldn't be complete if we didn't give a shout out to Mom's lifelong best friend Maureen Kennedy! Mom and Mrs Kennedy raised 14 kids with each other's help. They went to Lourdes, Catholic Church together. I fondly remember special events like anniversary masses, practicing Panis Angelicus and other songs in the choir and so much more. Mrs Kennedy will celebrate her 100th birthday with her twin this coming June. What a friendship they've had!
The great thing about honoring our mom is that when we remember the many wonderful things she did to serve others, it points us to an amazing and awesome God who created her!! God breathed life into her and gave her gifts to use to love others, to ultimately serve Him! And boy did she use those gifts! From the way I see it, her life glorified God. Thank you Mom for your example to inspire so many of us!
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I am James Fashing, child 4 of 5 of Annette Fashing and on behalf of my family, I'd like to say a few thank you's.
Each of these thank you's have a story behind them, a Fashing-length story. I'll spare you the full length versions today but any of the 5 of us would be willing to expand on them, if you dare ask.
First, Thank you friends, family, co-workers, parishioners, for your grace and support. This has been a difficult mission. We're just starting on this path of healing.
Thanks in advance for your patience.
We'd like to Thank the Stuart House.
They have simply become family.
This place is staffed with angels who love what they do. They love the residents.
They'd let us know when Mom had a lucid moment and hand us the phone.
Or would entertain us with questions like. Why is Annette speaking Spanish, or Latin.
God Bless you and your team.
Most of my thank you's are directed to my Mother, Annette Fashing.
How does one properly thank their Mom, such an interesting and brilliant person? Someone who shaped and molded so many people.
*Thank you Mom.
*For being a Mom, and not a BVM nun. -True story Mom was almost a nun.
*For being a scientist. -Anita mentioned her first degree was in biology.. I think I heard a few aha's put there. Yes. That is why the 5 of us are the way we are.. We are all wired to live the scientific method. My wife says there is the easy way, the hard way, and the Fashing way. Jerry has probably said that a few times. Tony, Karen, Daphne, Jerry, sound familiar?
*Thanks Mom for being a College Dropout. -Instead of getting her Masters in biology and studying CRILL in Antartica, she dropped out of school, drove the windy roads of Missouri and Arkansas and then married my dad, several days later. -Dad was in the military and they moved up their wedding date by 6 months.
*Thanks Mom - For teaching me photography as my personal 4-H leader.
*Thanks Mom for driving us on all of our educational family vacations.
Many summers we'd take the Fashing Family roadster topped off with an army tent up on the luggage rack. We'd zig zag across the US from educational place to campground to historical markers in the middle of nowhere. By early ages we had been in 24 states and knew that when Mom says use the bathroom at Rest Stop, that really means she won't stop if you have to go to the bathroom.
* Thanks Mom For helping us show cattle and giving your kids and grandkids steer calves to raise, feed and show. Mom allowing and insisting each of them to keep the proceeds for college money. She never charged for the calf or the feed.
*Thank you mom for insisting I learn to read well. I'll expand on this one a bit.
Before teaching reading to our kids here in centralia, Mom was a Title 1 Illinois State public school reading teacher assigned to a South Side school. Very few of the children were at reading level and it was difficult to move the needle.
It was truly providence that Mom found teaching reading as her calling. This hard-headed scientist didn't know how to give up.
Reading is the basic building block of learning. Teachers know that until 3rd grade, most lessons are centered around learning to read. after 3rd grade you are READING to learn.
If you are behind from 3rd grade, it is hard if not impossible to catch up and you just feel defeated. But THIS school had 8th graders reading at first grade reading levels.
One time when I was complaining about all the time mom spent with the kids of the Southside, she reminded me of the fact that my brothers and I were not great readers. We even were the sons of two genius-level teachers. How could these kids make it? Many had no one in their corner.
As long as Mom was there, they had her.
On weekends, Mom would trek back to that school and tudor kids but - Mom was getting her bags, purse, cash stolen periodically while on the L train.
So she invited John and me to accompany her on Saturdays when she was tutoring so she wouldn't be alone.
On Day 1 John and I made the mistake of acting bored about an hour into the day. She actually put us to work reading to the kids one by one.. going over the lesson prior to real tutoring in the next room.
The girls weren't interested in help from us. Life story.
The boys were lazier, which we understood, but they were as afraid of Mom almost as much we were. She'd just have to say from the other room. "I don't hear reading!"
We warmed them up while she worked with other kids and she would sometimes listen to their reading from the other side of the cubicle as part of her evaluation.
We did that during winter of the two school years we lived in Chicago.
I spend a lot of my youth a little jealous of these kids who had mom's attention.
But John and I learned to share our mom with the kids of the south side.
The experience improved our reading speed and comprehension.
John and I thought we were the body guards but we were in class the whole time.
Class was always in session.
Several years later, then Chance elementary principal Tom Quinn knew Annette because of her music ministry here over the summers and the one Sunday a month. He'd attend morning mass during the week during the summer and Mom was here every morning. He asked Mom to come and work for him as a reading specialist doing exactly what she did in Chicago but for the kids here in Centralia.
Thank you Mom, for not giving up on kids.. yours and your community's kids.
Thank you for teaching me until your last breath.