Obituary

Sally Ann Hiegel was born on September 30, 1925, in Davenport, Iowa. She was the daughter of Katherine “Katy” (Murray) Hiegel and Leo Edward Hiegel. Raised in Davenport she attended Sacred Heart Grade School, Immaculate Conception Academy and Marycrest College. During World War II Sally volunteered at the local USO center where she met her future husband, Jack Ellison Brown, a U.S. naval officer in training. Sally recalled years later in a local news story that “not everyone was excited that there were hundreds of servicemen in town. It made my father nervous because he had five daughters.” Sally and Jack were married on June 29, 1946, at Davenport’s Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Sally and Jack moved to Blissfield, Michigan where Jack joined his father, Gordon S. Brown, a cutter and designer at Richland Furs in Blissfield. Sally worked part-time at Blissfield Canning Co. and developed a lifelong interest in gardening and cooking. Sally and Jack were enthusiastic supporters of the Village’s new Schultz-Holmes Memorial Library and the Gail Giles Memorial Pool. After twelve years of college and graduate school at the University of Toledo Jack was hired by the Anaheim Union High School District and employed for many years as a teacher, counselor, vice-principal, principal and administrator. Sally worked for the Orange Unified School District as a secretary, clerk and assistant librarian and started a successful interior design and antique business.

During the more than the 60 years Sally and Jack lived in Orange County they pursued a lifelong hobby of buying, decorating and selling more than 20 of their own owner-occupied homes and condominiums from The Anaheim Hills to San Clemente to Indian Wells. Sally and Jack, both lifelong avid readers also volunteered for more that forty years at libraries throughout Orange County.

Sally is survived by her son, John Ellison Brown of Riverside, California, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren as well as many nephews and nieces. Daughter, Lisabeth “Lisa” Ann Brown preceded her in death as did her husband of 68 years, Jack; Sally’s parents, Leo E. Hiegel and Katherine Hiegel; her sisters, Jean Fitzsimmons (Bob) of Davenport, Iowa, Kay Miclot (Arzenberger) of Davenport, Iowa, Jill Manson (Donald) of Roswell Georgia and Nancy Lee Hiegel; and her brother Jerry Hiegel (Dorothy) of Madison, Wisconsin.