Obituary of Anne Shrader

Katherine Anne Royall Shrader (“Anne”) of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, died at home in the presence of her loving family on December 20, 2019 at the age of 82. Anne was born on March 4, 1937 in Lynchburg, Virginia to Eleanor and William Ewart Royall. She graduated from E.C. Glass High School and attended Randolph-Macon Women’s College. In 1959, she married L. Douglas Shrader, in Dwight Hall at Yale University. The couple raised two daughters in New Haven and Westport, Connecticut, and retired to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 2010. For 51 years, the Shraders spent every summer at their beloved cottage on Center Pond in Becket, Massachusetts. Anne was a skilled educator and talented entrepreneur whose love of children inspired her career as a teacher and toy manufacturer. She taught elementary school for 17 years, at the Responsive Environments Foundation in New Haven and at the Mead School for Human Development in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1979, she established Friday’s Products, a company manufacturing toys and children’s costumes of her own design, which she ran successfully until her retirement in 2008. For decades, Anne was active in local and state politics in Connecticut, Massachusetts and North Carolina. Among her proudest achievements was her instrumental work in establishing the Center Pond Restoration & Protection District in Becket, MA, to save this fragile waterway from destruction. Anne’s lifelong curiosity and love of learning continued with classes at OLLI at Duke University. Anne enjoyed golf, swimming, kayaking, and playing with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren well into her eighties. Anne is joyfully remembered by her friends, colleagues, and especially by her loving family. She is survived by her husband Doug, brother Bill, daughters Ellen and Elizabeth, two sons-in-law, four granddaughters, and three great-grandchildren. A memorial service will take place on Sunday, January 19 at 2:00 p.m. at the University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. All are welcome to attend and celebrate Anne Shrader’s remarkable life. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to UNC Hospice, P.O. Box 1077, Pittsboro, NC, 27312. Walker’s Funeral Home of Chapel Hill has been entrusted with caring for the Shrader family.