Ann Curtis Kriebel (1955-1983)

Ann Curtis Kriebel is my 4th cousin. I never met her but we were born just about a year apart - me in 1954 in California, Ann in 1955, Ohio. I 'met' her while extending our Harned line from common ancestors John Harned (1783-1848) and Phoebe Laing (1790-1839). I was first intrigued by her birth year, but then struck by the fact that she died in 1983 at age 28 in Costa Rica. Why was she there? I had to know more about this cousin.

I was able to locate her story written in the 15 December 1984 Friends Journal-Quaker Thought and Life Today. The article, titled Gracias a la Vida was written by Joyce Balderston.

Ann Curtis Kriebel - the name brings to mind happy smiles, big hugs, backpacks, fresh loaves of bread, walks in the woods, dulcimers, songs and singing, weaving, and hours of sharing ideas, plans, and dreams. My earliest recollection of Ann was in Wooster Friends Meeting, in Wooster, Ohio, when she was 11 years old and sitting quietly with her parents. Not having grown up as a Friend, I wondered how a young person could sit so quietly for an hour and what could be happening in that silence.

 Her Quaker background is mentioned with roots dating back to some of America's earliest history. Her mother's family [and ours - Harned] had been New Jersey Friends since their arrival in Burlington, New Jersey in 1683. 

Ann with guitar in San Luis, Costa Rica

She was educated at a private Quaker school: Westtown School, where her philosophy of simplicity began to develop. The verse about not laying up treasure on earth but rather in heaven led her to limit her own personal belongings. 

When asked to sing to her new friends in Costa Rica with her dulcimer she chose to sing "Simple Gifts." 

"Quakers have a testimony about simplicity," she explained. "To put material cares aside, and other more important things first..."

She struggled to define simplicity in a world of such obvious physical contrasts. "What does it really mean to 'live simply'? Will we arrive once we sell our blender and stereo? Does it mean giving up electricity and building an outhouse? Does simplicity come with making our own bread and granola? Is it really a matter of our material possessions or, rather, a state of mind, heart, and spirit? One of the lines of the song 'Simple Gifts' got stuck in my mind: 'When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed.' "

Ann attended Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. She first volunteered in Mexico after her junior year, and later worked in the barrios of Mexico City after she graduated. From there she moved to Monteverde, Costa Rica, a Friends community high in the mountains. She taught in the community school using her skills in language, music, and drama, teaching English to the Spanish-speaking and Spanish to the English-speaking. 

She returned to the United States in 1980 to teach Spanish-speaking adults in Boston. She struggled with the values of the high-tech, urban existence there. At the end of the year, she returned to Monteverde and secured funding for a literacy program in San Luis. In a letter home, she wrote: 

"Ovideo Leiton, who is in my literacy class, stood up and read aloud a two-page report, complete with lists of figures, and he did it beautifully...People seem proud of their pasts and eager to tell their stories...I wrote a song about deforestation, which I sang as Guillermo pantomimed it in dancelike fashion."

She wrote of the incredible success of the eyeglass project they were wrapping up. "But it will take some time to get used to suddenly seeing San Luis farmers in glasses!"

She was pleased with the seeds that she had helped to plant but was anxious for the people to be committed to furthering their own projects to address the needs of their people. 'Sometimes when you're so in the thick of it it's hard to see what's really going on, but then looking back...something has definitely happened - is happening - oftentimes very intangible, but still evident in subtle ways."

She died 24 November 1983 of an infection while serving in Costa Rica.

"True simplicity should connote not poverty but, rather, a richness of spirit, a joy in living, the nurturing of creativity, sensitivity to the natural world, and love for all its creatures. As an expression of this love, this true simplicity, we must then, too, commit ourselves to building a more equitable world - a world in which this simplicity may thrive and be enjoyed by everyone: 'And when we find ourselves in the place just right it will be in the valley of love and delight.' "

--excerpt from an article written by Ann Kriebel and published in the Friends Journal 15 Dec 1984

Her pedigree: Ann Curtis Kriebel>>Dorothea Harned Reeder>>Walter Lewis Reeder>> Alice H. Harned>>John Harned>>John Harned & Phebe Laing (where we intersect with her.)