Well I hate to say this but my real name is Annjeanette Urbanski. Now my maiden name was Rooney, so that wasn’t too bad, but right now social security and everybody throws it out because it’s too long.

I’ve always been known as Annie Rooney, because that was a song and everything else. So all my life I’ve been Annie Rooney anyway. I was born in Columbus Grove, Ohio in Putnam County. I was born October 30, 1922. I’m one of eleven children and third from the oldest. I have six brothers right under me and a sister and a brother

My father was actually a meat cutter, basically, and so I lived in quite a few small towns growing up just where we could find a living, actually. Then we moved to Findlay in 1932 when I was 12. Is that right? I must have been 10. Right, 10, so I’ve lived in Findlay the rest of my life except for a period of time when Lou and I moved away from Findlay, but this was my home.


Annie: My mom was a saint, right Lou?

Lou: Yeah.

Annie: She was truly the dearest woman you ever met in your life. She was a great psychologist, she handled everything. We were quite poor. We really were quite poor, but she always had it out around her that she could take care of.

Lou: They were always desperate to get their lunch, breakfast, living with eleven kids.

Annie: She was an amazing woman. I would have liked to have been very much like her. But, anyway, my mother was very special and my father was a very hard-working person.

I was daddy’s little girl because I was one of the older. He got tired after a while (Laughs). My mom’s name was Louise Halker Rooney. She was German and my father was Irish. They had a wonderful romance and they were just a good middle-income family. We grew up here and we had a wonderful time.