Anne Cherry

Anne Cherry (née Saville) passed away on December 7, 2025. She was 93.

Anne, a true daughter of Ohio, was born in Columbus on July 26, 1932. She graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1954. Her degree was in elementary education, and she was a proud member of Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority. While at OWU, she met and married Douglas Starr Cherry, her husband of nearly fifty years until his death in 2005. After brief adventures elsewhere, Anne and Doug settled in Terrace Park, where Anne continued to live in their home until her death. They raised three cherished children and, over the years, an assortment of cats and two dogs.

Anne’s sharp wit, quick laugh, and magnetic personality earned her lifelong friends (including a bridge club that lasted 60 years) and the devotion of a large extended family. In an era when women were told to stick to their knitting, Anne mastered knitting, quilting, needlepoint, and all other stitches, but she did not stop there, as knitting alone could not occupy her considerable talents.

Anne was a tireless volunteer. She founded the prayer shawl ministry at St. Thomas Episcopal Church and led it for twenty years. Under her leadership, the group made and donated numerous prayer shawls, blankets, mittens, hats, and other essential items for the sick and underserved in her community. She was also an active member of the St. Thomas Altar Guild and devoted significant time to the Guild’s organization and success. Anne additionally volunteered in support of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati (many of those hours alongside her husband, reflecting their shared compassion) and for numerous other charitable causes throughout her life.

Fiercely competitive in all things, Anne frequently won bridge (she claimed), occasionally won her March Madness pools, and never missed a Buckeyes or Bengals football game. Anne always told you what she thought and often made you smile in the telling. She loved America, cherished Scotland, and voted Republican. She would happily opine on all three. Anne possessed a rare and valuable combination: She was a woman of fierce conviction who spoke her mind, but she also refused to take herself too seriously and delighted in a good joke.

Anne was unmatched. More than anything, she deeply loved—and was loved by—her family. She will be greatly missed.

Anne was pre-deceased by her husband, Douglas Starr Cherry and her son, Douglas MacMillian Cherry, whose tragic death on September 11, 2001, was the great sorrow in her life, as well as her parents, George and Margaret Saville, her sister, Barbara Owen (Bill), and her brother, Ed Saville (Charlotte).

A treasured matriarch, Anne is survived by her daughters, Margaret Smith (Andrew) and Barbara Mills (Bob), her daughter-in-law, Sarah Cherry, and her eight grandchildren—Barbara (Ben), Kevin (Megan), Sarah (Ben), Alex (Emily), Emma (Zoey), Molly (Matthew), Isabel, and Jack. She is also survived by eight much-beloved great-grandchildren as well as many loving nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and other extended family.

A memorial service will be held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park on January 17, 2026, at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati or the Tunnels to Towers Foundation.