Anne Pedersen Todd

Anne Pedersen Todd | January 26, 1931 – July 16, 2025

Anne passed away peacefully on the evening of July 16, 2025 after quietly receiving visits from all three generations of her family throughout the day and praying a rosary with her daughter in her last hour.

Anne was the first child of Margaret Orszag (1910-1990) and Martin Buron (1906-2001), born on January 26, 1931 in Ashtabula, OH and baptized on February 8, 1931 at the nearby St. Margaret’s Catholic Church. She had one sister, Margaret Buron (1933- 2020), and the family of four moved to New York City when Anne was four years old. They lived atop her father’s Hungarian bakery where he made dozens of linzer cookies daily, and her mother frequently took Anne and Margaret to the movie theater after school, establishing her lifelong love of movies. Anne attended the all-girls Cathedral High School at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Her personality from the beginning was one of cheeky gumption. Her parents did not allow her to have birthday parties, but one year in grade school, she decided she would invite her friends over and throw herself one. Her father, having cake supplies from the bakery downstairs, decided not to object just for that year, and the party continued, cake and all.

She was a natural musical talent as a coloratura soprano, and she sang in the Metropolitan Opera and NBC choirs. She worked as a popover girl at Patricia Murphy’s restaurant, which is where her granddaughters suspect is where she received a number of marriage proposals that she wisely shunned. She met Louis Richard “Pete” Pedersen, Jr. while they both worked at NBC, and one of their first dates was at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. They were married on September 12, 1953 at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Queens and honeymooned at Lake George in upstate New York. Pete captured several sweet scenes from the first few days of their marriage on 8mm film from his video camera, Anne in her rolled-up jeans in front of the cabin in the woods with a sparkling smile. They welcomed seven children in nine years, in the midst of which, they moved to Hazlet, NJ. In alignment with her lifelong belief that every child should grow up around animals, they added two Norwegian Elkhounds to their family, Risë and Bambi. The household was beautiful chaos, embodying her philosophy that “it is just as easy to smile as it is to frown.” On one frowning occasion, she memorably exclaimed “you only get to say ‘sh*t’ when you’ve seen as much of it as I have!”

Tragedy struck in 1979 when she lost her youngest child, Mark, to a farm accident.

As their children married and moved out, Pete and Anne moved to Holmdel, NJ in 1985, then to St. Petersburg, FL in 1989. They loved to travel together, with notable trips to Italy, Israel, India, China, and Thailand.

Anne lost the love of her life, Pete, on October 19, 1995. She honored his memory by continuing to live life to the fullest, traveling the world, cantoring at the Blessed Trinity Catholic Church, and hosting family in Florida, where she frequently took her grandchildren shopping at favorites like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Bealls.

Anne married Dolvin “Bill” Todd (1929-2017) on July 3, 1999, enlisting her slew of granddaughters as a cornucopia of bridesmaids, junior bridesmaids, and a flower girl.

She enjoyed good health for most of her life, which she chalked up to a nightly glass of scotch (preferably Chivas Regal) in a surreptitious mug, but in 2013 both their health started to decline, and they moved to Houston to be closer to family. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, which she beat with strength through faith and mani/pedis with her daughter. She cheated death several times over her last decade, allowing for some particularly special extra credit time for her family. Those years in Houston were defined by visits from her three generations of descendants, including gingerbread house builds at Christmastime, weekly McDonalds deliveries from beloved grandchildren, and the welcoming of great-grandbabies who slept peacefully in her experienced arms.

Her seventeen grandchildren adored her. Her relationships varied with each grandchild, but she had an underrated ability to meet everyone where they were and inject humor when it was needed. Her collection of movies was a robust source of entertainment for her grandchildren, and she had a movie for every mood, paying little attention to whether or not it was age appropriate. Music was a consistent language throughout her life, whether it was singing the Ave Maria at family weddings or sitting with her quietly listening to favorite compositions without any words needed. In the small and consequential moments, she was there to remind you that your angels were watching over you.

If you were to measure a life on statistics alone, Anne’s would be an overwhelming success: in 94 years, she had 7 children, 17 grandchildren, and 23 (and counting!) great-grandchildren, not to mention all the dear spouses of this group. She was a matriarch in the purest sense of the word and a living testament to her name, Anne, which reflects the sacred legacy of St. Anne, the mother of Mary and grandmother to Jesus and His Church.

Anne’s life could not be distilled to numbers alone. Her wit and wisdom were unparalleled, even by all the banter in the thousands of DVDs and VHSes that overflowed the walls of her St. Petersburg home. She had a level of sass gained only by a cocktail of a New York upbringing, swarms of marriage proposals (“when I was your age, I already had 5 men propose to me!” said to her granddaughters by the ripe age of 16), and repartee with dozens of children across three generations. Her wisdom was formed by this same experiential cocktail – her time-old adage “make sure he loves you more than you love him” lives on in the pictures that show Anne and Pete together, his eyes always locked on her fall nothing short of the deepest admiration. It wasn’t until later in life that the sincerity of her adage was placed into doubt, as she described how much she loved Grandpa (30 years after he passed), how “when I see him again, I’m gonna propose and see what happens,” and it seemed impossible to imagine a love even greater than hers to him. It seems that the adage really meant “love each other as Christ loves His Church.” As the girls of her family became women and married with this advice in their minds, the truth is demonstrated in the generations of happy, faith-filled, and fruitful marriages like hers.

She has created an army of loving and caring people who all learned how to be selfless, strong, independent, and warm, just like her. And at Christmastime, you will always be able to smell the linzer cookies from the homes of continuing generations of Pedersen families.

Anne was predeceased by her beloved husband, L. Richard “Pete” Pedersen Jr., her son Mark Everett Pedersen, and her dear second husband Dolvin W. “Bill” Todd Sr.

Anne is survived by six of her children: Carol (Henry) Karnas, Margie (Chris) Block, Laurie (Ron) Savino, L. Richard “Rick” (Maureen) Pedersen III, Janet (Tom) Horton, Donna (Mike) McGinnis; seventeen grandchildren: Peter (Mona) Karnas, Elizabeth (Sergio) Frisoli, Marian (Nick) Schenk, Catherine (Adam) Mengon, Mark (Marcy) Block, Andrew Block, Lisa (Mike) Waln, Matt (Laura) Savino, Debbie Savino, Eric (Kara) Pedersen, Mark (Kathleen) Pedersen, Sarah (Jhonatan) Aldama, T. Zachary “Zach” (Courtney) Horton, Emily (Thayer) Wade, Austin McGinnis, Michael Tyler McGinnis, and Lauren McGinnis; and twenty-three great-grandchildren: Luca, Beatrice, and Matteo Frisoli, Kelly Elise and Annelise Schenk, Harrison, Oliver, and Lily Jean Mengon, Joseph and Samantha Grace Block, Dominic and Declan Waln, Baby Pedersen (due October 2025), Cecilia and Olivia Pedersen, Logan Aldama, Gianna, Zelie, Leo, Thomas, and Baby (due February 2026) Horton, Lucy and Baby (due October 2025) Wade. She is also survived by her sister-in-law, Lois Trompke and her sons, Steve and Bob; and her uncle, Joe Buron.

The family would like to express their sincere appreciation to Mom’s entire care team at The Forum. She loved you all as much as you loved her.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to either the FoxG1 Research Foundation in honor of her great-granddaughter, Gianna Horton (www.foxg1research.org) or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a cause she staunchly supported throughout her life (www.stjude.org).