Just Released!
BIOGRAPHY
Annie was born in Walla Walla Washington in 1945 to Clarence and Elberta Helmick. To quote her, “I’m sure I came into this world with an inherent interest in indigenous people, as I can’t recall a time when their culture didn’t intrigue me.”
Her parents brought her home to Prescott, a town 20 miles north of her birthplace. The town’s 250 population included the three of them, her paternal grandparents, and, oh, yes, her brother Thomas, who was 3 1/2 years old. Prescott boasted of having two churches, two grocery stores, a restaurant, a drugstore with a real doctor, and a tavern. Her father, a railroad section hand, helped maintain the tracks. He worked under his father who was the section foreman.
Conveniently, they lived directly across from the traditional 2-story brick school house, giving Annie after-school and weekend access to the playground. Kindergarten was solely a two-hour playtime to learn to socialize. At the end of the first day of first grade, Annie came home upset because her teacher failed to teach her to read and write. She and two friends became majorettes at the age of six. They made quite the splash when marching in parades with the school band, as they were the first and only young twirlers in all the school districts.
Growing up in the 1950’s was special. Growing up in the small town was fun. Everyone knew everyone, and as children, they were given more freedom than most city kids. In the eighth grade, she cheerleaded. The same year Annie graduated from the eighth grade, her brother Thomas graduated from high school.
Her father, at forty-one years old, developed an undetermined, yet serious, heart condition. He remained home recovering for two and a half years. Annie was a cheerleader her sophomore and junior years and had remained a majorette since the first grade. By her junior year, she was the only majorette in the school. To keep the art alive, she taught four fifth-grade girls to twirl.
In 1963, not only did Annie graduate from high school, but her brother graduated from college, and they both married that summer. Her husband was an airman. They moved to Tyndall Air Force Base outside of Panama City Florida. After they divorced, she married Thomas Kochert, another serviceman. In 1967, Julie, their daughter, was born at the base. They traveled to Chilli A.F.B. just outside Izmir Turkey, where the three of them spent nearly two interesting years. Then they were off to an Air Force site outside Los Vegas. Their son Thomas was born in 1972 at Nellis Air Force Base, also, outside Los Vegas. After that, her husband was stationed in South Korea. By then, her parents resided outside the small town of Molalla, Oregon. The children and she lived near them until a year later, when Thomas was stationed at Chanute A.F.B. near the town of Rantoul, Illinois.
During the fall of 1979, Annie’s father passed away, and her husband was diagnosed with a fatal illness. As a single parent, she thought the easiest place to raise their children was back home in Prescott, and so that’s where they moved. Thomas passed away in 1981at the age of thirty-seven.
To become a substance abuse counselor, Annie attended two Jr. colleges, took university courses plus attended courses offered by a Washington State Indian college. She remained in that profession for 7 years at which time she met Jan Rouse, a Native American Nez Perce woman and a vender at the northwestern Pow Wows. Annie’s interest in Native Americans reached its zenith, and two years later in 1994, she began to write LINEAGE: A Trail of Shaman.
Unfortunately, shortly after publishing the novel in 2001, she was hit by a drunk driver, leaving her unable to continue any duties pertaining to being a self-publisher, including selling and marketing. She closed her short-lived business. Recently, due to her friends’ continual encouragement, she revised the book and wrote the next one in the LINEAGE series.