Breast cancer survivor gives back

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By Sandra Baer, Contributing Writer 10:09 AM Thursday, November 19, 2009

Connie Anspach is a breast cancer survivor who believes in giving back. After being diagnosed in 2005, Anspach received phone calls from breast cancer volunteers, eager to help her through the ordeal.

“I feel like I’m just giving back a little of what I’ve gotten,” said Anspach, 63, who volunteers at the Kettering Medical Center. “Through breast cancer, I’ve met some wonderful people.”

Anspach was born in Jamaica Queens, N.Y. Her father was a member of a large New York Greek family, but married Anspach’s non-Greek mother from Dayton after meeting her in Miami Beach, Fla., where he was stationed during World War II.

“My father was a furrier in New York City, and we just kept moving farther and farther out on Long Island,” said Anspach, who said the family usually lived near the beach and most often on Long Island’s. “I went to four different schools when I was in the fourth grade.”

Anspach traveled to Dayton during the summers to visit her grandparents and maternal relatives. After graduating from W.C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, N.Y., in 1964, Anspach attended college in Pikeville, Ky., for three years.

“My mother went to school there,” said Anspach, who studied education, but left after three years to marry her high school sweetheart. “We knew he was going to be sent to Vietnam, so we got married.”

Anspach traveled with her first husband to Cherry Point, N.C., and Buford, S.C., while he trained to be an F-4 pilot, but returned to New York after his training ended.

The couple eventually had two children. Their oldest, John Flanagan, 39, graduated from Bellbrook High School and attended Wright State University where he met his wife, Theresa.

After Theresa completed medical school at WSU, the couple married and moved to North Carolina where Theresa completed her residency and Flanagan graduated from North Carolina State University. Flanagan currently is director of the Berkshire Nursing Homes. He lives in Bellbrook with his wife and three children, Lucas. 8, Conner, 4, and Sawyer, 6 month’s old.

Anspach’s younger son, Tim, lives in Belmont and works at Moeller Music.

After Anspach’s husband separated from the military he accepted a position with Grumman Aerospace and moved to Iran, where he taught flight instructions to members of the Iranian Air Force.

“It was beautiful and I enjoyed the people so much,” said Anspach, who lived in Isfahan from 1975 to 1977.

“Things were starting to get dangerous toward the end, so I decided to move back to Ohio where my parents were living.”

Anspach divorced her first husband and completed a business degree at Miami Jacobs College so she could support her two sons.

She worked as a secretary and office manager for the Dayton executive search firm Placemart.

She met her second husband, Bill Anspach, a chemical engineer working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, on a blind date and said that it was love at first sight.

The couple married in 1983 and Anspach remained at home, but took a job as a babysitter for Sarah and Nicholas Andrews, whose mother Debbie Andrews, a Mad River teacher, was killed in an automobile accident in 2000.

The Andrews children are now grown. Anspach said she spends her time volunteering with breast cancer patients through “Moving Forward Hand to Hand” at The Kettering Medical Center.

Contact this columnist  at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.

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