Ann Kaiser passed away on December 13, 2024 from congestive heart failure just four days short of her 94th birthday. She was born Elizabeth Anne Hotz in Highland Park, Illinois on December 17, 1930, the youngest of 3 children by Robert Schuettler Hotz and Elizabeth Margaret Prindeville. Ann grew up in Chicago, Manhattan, and at a series of east coast boarding schools where she fell in love with and fell down from many horses. She came out as a New York debutante in 1949, then toured France, England & Scotland, living in Paris, attending a royal ball at the Duke of Norfolk’s castle, and later having tea with Winston Churchill. She attended Connecticut College for Women and graduated in 1951 with a degree in studio art with a specialty in children’s book illustration. Immediately after graduation she married Bill Waterhouse, a WWII paratrooper and agriculture grad from the University of Connecticut. Ann worked as a technical illustrator and followed Bill around the country where he worked as a sales rep for Caterpillar. Ann pursued her passions of car racing (amateur hill climbs in her MG-TD), shotgun shooting (1958 women’s trap champion at the Walla Walla gun club), and volunteer work (the Girl Scouts and Junior League) and raised 3 children: Robert, John and Barbara.
Ann welcomed everyone into her home, and along the way the family acquired and raised many “extra kids”. She was well known for organizing business and community events and throwing epic Boxing Day parties. Ann worked in retail for Ty Cobb’s daughter at Shirley Cobb’s Bookstore in Palo Alto. She took up SCUBA diving in her late 40’s, divorced her husband, and married Rick Kaiser, a SCUBA instructor 25 years her junior, on May 2, 1987.
Ann worked in manufacturing (assembling drysuits at Dry Diving Systems in Renton), in retail (selling cookware at Yankee Kitchen in Bellevue), and in fine art (framing artwork at Dimensions Gallery in Bellevue). Ann was an active SCUBA diver in the Pacific Northwest and known to many as “the Diving Den Mother”. She taught seafood cooking to SCUBA divers and eventually published a seafood cookbook at 82.
She and her husband moved to Bellingham, Washington in 1990 for a fresh start. She immediately talked her way into jobs as the office manager at New Whatcom Interiors and as the Executive Secretary and Education Program Director at the Mount Baker Theatre. When she wasn’t working, she volunteered at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Ferndale Heritage Society, Assistance League, Marine Life Center, and Downtown Arts District. She was appointed to the advisory boards at the Marine Life Center, Whatcom Museum, Western Washington University College of Fine & Performing Arts, and the Mount Baker Theatre. She established the Ann & Rick Kaiser Scholarship at Bellingham Technical College. She officially stopped working in her early-80’s, but continued to volunteer into her early 90’s. When time, money, and mobility allowed, she and her husband traveled frequently to the places that fascinated her the most: the high arctic and western Europe.
Those who knew her said:
“Ann was a class act on every level.”
“She was a force of nature with the biggest heart I’ve known.”
“She had a jolly laugh, a quick wit, and this especially mischievous twinkle in her eye. Not many people lived life to the fullest as she did.”
Ann is survived by her husband, three children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. A memorial service is scheduled for later this spring. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Ann & Rick Kaiser scholarship fund at Bellingham Technical College. Donate here: https://form-renderer-app.donorperfect.io/give/bellingham-technical-college-foundation/donate-now
