Greatest Person Annie Budd Dedicates Life to Service

“God has been good to me so I try to repay that goodness by living a life of service to others --it has been a life filled with amazing grace under pressure and how you react to what happens pretty much depends on how you look at it. Staying positive helps,” said Annie Budd, 91, of .

The mother of four adult children with 13 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren also has an extended family that includes the 100 residents of Rye Manor on Theall Rd.

Annie Budd has worked weekly sorting items for ’s thrift shop sale for the last five years, . 

Annie does a lot of sorting. She is Rye Manor’s unofficial librarian– filing and sorting books, DVDs and donations almost everyday. She also sets up the twice weekly chair aerobics classes at Rye Manor, making sure the light weights are out of the storage cabinet and placing the unofficial class mascot– a wooden cat statuette called Meow Meow– front and center as a reminder that while cats may have nine lives humans don’t, exercising the mind, body and spirit is an important part of daily living.

Budd is also Rye Manor's unofficial Rye Manor guardian angel keeping track of the residents and their well-being. When someone hasn’t shown up for a class, Bingo or a communal card game, she checks to make sure everything is alright with a discreet knock on their apartment door or a phone call.

During a recent check, she discovered one of the residents on the floor of her apartment, fallen while trying to reach the emergency call button in her domicile. When she didn’t respond to knocks and phone calls, Annie called 911. That call saved the woman’s life.

“I don’t know why God gives me the grace to do things like that,” she says with prodding. “It just happens.”

Things just seem to happen to Annie. They included not giving up on her husband when he was reported missing in action during World War II after his B-29 was shot down after a bombing run over Japan during World War II. He was rescued after several hours in a storm-tossed sea off the Mariannas by a sailor who once lived around the corner from him in Jersey City.

She didn't despair when one of her sons was shot up badly as a Special Forces U.S. Army Green Beret during a helicopter rescue attempt in Vietnam. Annie prayed all the while and knewing he would come through.

Annie remained calm as she gave her husband mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR to no avail when he died of a stroke during a bridge game with friends. “I called 911, but they couldn’t save him either; one minute he was laughing, the next minute he was gone,” Annie recalls.

Budd was born in the aptly-named Annie’s Land, a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, almost 92 years ago. Her father Andrew worked on the railroad and was such an outstanding soccer player he was recruited to play for an American team in Pennsylvania. His granddaughters Liz and Maddy Chabot would become stand-outs on the outstanding Rye High soccer teams and seem destined for college greatness.

Andrew worked on the railroad as part of his off-field soccer duties and saved enough money to send for his wife Elizabeth and their young daughter Annie, then 3, in September 1923.

That meant a ten-day ocean crossing on the Tuscania. Annie’s mom became so seasick she was mostly confined to her cabin. Little Annie became the unofficial ship’s mascot, dined alone as the only child on the ship, fed one of the dogs on the ship with leftover meal scraps and mostly fended for herself without complaint.

The family eventually settled in Jersey City where Annie got an early lesson in doing the right thing, no matter the cost. When one of her father’s colleagues was scalded during a train accident, the man’s wife asked Andrew Budd to testify on her family’s behalf. Her father had been told he would lose his job if he stood up in court, but he did. And lost his job.

“He always did the right thing,” Annie recalled. “Money was tight. But things have a way of working out  for the best. And they did.”

Annie also remembers one of her neighbors asked her to go to a New Year’s Eve party when she was 15, when she showed up was told she to babysit instead. Annie asked the neighbor to let her attend the party anyway; and after one of the boys walked her home. 

A week later, that boy showed up at Annie’s apartment and asked her father if he could take Annie to the rodeo in New York City. Her father agreed if it was OK with Annie. That was Annie’s first trip to the rodeo and her first date with George Budd, the man who would become her husband.

They had four children, George, Robert and David– all college graduates and now retired executives– and Laurie, now married to Rye’s Dr. John Chabot, a prominent cancer surgeon. Annie worked as a secretary-assistant to the Jersey City Superintendent of Schools, George for Westinghouse before he retired.

After her husband’s death, Annie came to Rye to help daughter Laurie raise her family. During one of her visits five years ago, Annie fell and injured her leg and hips. She decided to apply for an affordable assisted-living apartment at Rye Manor so she could always be near at least one of her adult children and grandchildren.

“It all seems kind of pre-destined, more or less,” Annie says. “What you do with what happens to you depends on how you look at it. I see my life as grace-filled with God having been good to me which is why I dedicate my life to service to others.”