Ann Disborough Fredericks was born in Louisville, Kentucky on August 21, 1960 to Phyllis Ann LeNeau and Edwin Dewitt Disborough. She spent her early years in upstate New York. After the loss of her mother, at the age of five, she and her brother John, moved in with her paternal grandmother, Marie, in Connorsville, Indiana. She reminisced fondly on this time with her grandmother - the organist for the local church and a great cook.

In 1969, Ed was remarried to Joan Purvis, and, along with her children John, Bob, and Debbie Purvis, they formed their own “Brady Bunch”. The family followed Ed in his storied career with positions at GE, RCA, Hallmark, Samsonite, Beatrice Foods, and Coors. The family spent time in Kansas City and then moved to Golden, Colorado living up on Lookout Mountain.

Growing up, Ann was busy in school with lead roles in school plays, academics, swimming, tennis, cheerleading, and worked as a reporter for the Golden Colorado newspaper. She notoriously rode her bike down, and more importantly back up, the 5 mile Lariat Trail every day for work at the paper.

She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science in 1982 from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Following her college, she took a job with Channel 4 in Denver before moving on to KUSA Channel 9. During this time, she earned multiple accolades including a regional Emmy award for a campaign using Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” song and several New York Film Festival awards.

Charlie Fredericks met Ann in 1985 and he was immediately smitten. She was producing a GE corporate employee medical benefits video and was using Mercy Hospital’s Emergency Department for the back drop footage. Charlie, pulling out all the stops to impress a beautiful woman, offered Ann and her crew butter cookies from his infamous lunch box. This sparked two special years dating until Ann was offered a job working in communications and employee relations at the almost all male GE corporate headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. She was breaking glass ceilings! Ann and Charlie agreed that splitting up was not an option, so instead, they agreed to embark on the adventure together. They married on December 19, 1987 in an intimate ceremony surrounded by family and friends at the Christ the King Church in Evergreen, Colorado. A snowy drive to Colorado Springs afterwards for a stay at the Broadmoor Hotel, and a pit stop for Chinese food, would go on to become their favorite anniversary tradition.

Their first home was in the beautiful, quaint New England town of Woodbury, Connecticut. Ann prospered professionally at GE and Charlie worked at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport. Five years later, their oldest daughter, Nina, was born. Ann’s career changed gears and she moved on to the GE Electric Design & Control business before transitioning to a consultant role for GE. She worked side-by-side with Jack Welch and James McNerney, the future CEO of Boeing, on GE publicity and communications, including labor union negotiations. During their time in Connecticut, Ann and Charlie met many treasured friends and built relationships that lasted the rest of Ann’s life.

In 1997, Ann, Charlie, and Nina made a big move again, this time for Charlie’s career, to Nashville, TN. Charlie began work at St. Thomas Midtown, where he recently retired after 28 years of service, alongside colleagues who would go on to become family. Shortly after settling into their new home in 1999, Nina got the thing she had always prayed for - to be a big sister! This was, of course, to not one baby, but to her amazement (and Ann and Charlie’s), triplet sisters Caroline, Anna, and Dolores. After “the girls” were born, Ann made the decision to not re-enter the work place and devoted her efforts to full-time domestic engineering.

As any who knew her can attest, “devoted” does not begin to cover the extent of her dedication to her family and community in the years that followed. Ann worked tirelessly raising the kids. She was the mom that everyone wished they had. She never missed an event and always had surprises for holidays and birthdays, made final exams care packages, and, of course, made fudge or cookies for all - down to including their mail lady and the trash man. She was constantly busy helping out at Christ the King School as a room parent, Father Ryan High School, and with the Catholic Church. Her Catholic faith guided her - a value she instilled in her family every day. She met many of her closest friends through her volunteering (sometimes volun-telling) efforts. A common thread when others talk about Ann has been that she was someone who helped others through their darkest times - she shined for anyone whose life she touched.

She loved traveling home to Colorado to spend time with her family in Golden and Evergreen as well as Charlie’s family in Colorado Springs. They made countless trips together, including Colorado skiing trips, fly fishing trips to the family cabin on the South Platte River in Colorado, a honeymoon in the Florida Keys, Scotland, a family trip to Hawaii, annual trips to Santa Rosa Beach, Mexico, and Grand Cayman Island for their 30th wedding anniversary.

She led a full life with plenty of joy and love. Her kindness lives on in all of us. She will be best remembered by her family for her warmth, sense of humor, and endless capacity for compassion.

Ann was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2017. Not wanting to have that become the thing that defined her, she chose to undergo treatment privately, instead of in the public eye. The Fredericks family will be forever grateful to her team at TN Oncology and Sarah Cannon Research Institution for the eight years that they gave them together. Those eight years gave Ann the chance to not only attend big events like graduations and weddings, but to enjoy the small, mundane joys of day-to-day life as a family.

She is survived by her loving husband Charlie, daughters Nina, Caroline, Anna, and Dolores, sons-in-law Evan and Garrett, step-siblings Debi and John, brother and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, and a community of friends that she loved like family.

The Fredericks Family has asked in lieu of flowers that donations be made to Nashville Catholic Charities or to the Sarah Cannon Fund with American Cancer Society.

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