BLYTHEWOOD – Annie Rimer Faust, 103, lived an unassuming life with few frills and selfless devotion to her family. The quintessential homemaker, she was content with what most would call a humble existence – gardening, sewing clothes for her family, cooking and the simple joy of being with friends and family.
While she lived an unpretentious life, in her senior years, Faust lived every senior citizen’s dream, basking in round-the-clock attention of an army of loving caregivers – her family – in her own home where she had lived the last 75 years.
And there were other perks of a well-lived, long life. She was honored with the distinction of being named the Grand Marshall in the town’s Christmas parade this last December and, just before Faust was laid to rest on Sunday, just down the road from where she grew up, she was honored by the Mayor of Blythewood with a proclamation, designating the day of her funeral as Annie Rimer Faust Day. Representative Gambrell Garvin was one of many who honored Faust by posting sentiments on the notice of her death that appeared on The Voice’s Facebook page.
Such public adulation was not what she had experienced or expected as she lived out her life, from birth to death, in Blythewood.
An article written about Faust last fall described her as the oldest living native Blythewoodian. It also described her as a strong, independent woman. Even as her children, grands and great grands took turns staying with her around the clock in her later years, she still answered her own phone and made her own decisions. And, according to her son-in-law, Bill Prince, who eulogized Faust as ‘a fine woman,’ she remained in charge of her faculties and her household until just before her death from a short illness.
“On the day before Valentine’s day, as her heart began to fail and grow weak, we were all there except for her granddaughter Brittany, an Army soldier stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma,” Faust’s daughter Sandra Prince said. “The great grands were distraught and begged mom to stay with us until Brittany could get home that night. When Brittany and her mother walked through the door at midnight, mom took their hands and held them tightly, and then she closed her eyes and died peacefully. She didn’t go until we were all there.”
Born in Blythewood on June 11, 1916, Faust was a daughter of the late John Phillip and Sally Raines Rimer. She was a faithful member of Killian Baptist Church. After her daughters were of school age, Faust worked part time for several years at Berry’s Country Grocery Store across the road from her home.
But her passion was always for cooking and sewing for her family; as well as working in her garden and yard.
In an interview with The Voice last fall, Faust credited her good health and long life to eating lots of vegetables, and her youthful skin to Oil of Olay. A witty conversationalist until the end, when asked in an interview with The Voice how long she and her husband were married, she quipped, ‘We’re still married. He’s just dead.’ Faust’s daughters said she loved to chat and joke with friends who stopped in to visit.
Surviving are her two daughters, Sandra Faust Prince (Bill) and Cheryl Faust Bullock (Carl); grandchildren Bonnie Walker (Jason), Bill Prince, Jr., Kayce Prince-Harvey (Charles), Brittany Ashton Bullock; seven great-grandchildren; and one great-great grandchild; as well as sisters-in-law, Willie Mae Rimer and Meta Walker.
In addition to her parents, Faust is preceded in death by her husband, Littleton H. Faust; sisters, Lurline Lomas, Ellie Pate, Ida Rimer and brother, Boyd Rimer.
During her funeral service on Sunday afternoon at Shives Funeral home, Trenholm Road Chapel, Pastor Chris Reinolds officiated, her great-grandchildren eulogized her with sweet remembrances and songs and Blythewood Mayor Bryan Franklin read a proclamation, saying he was honored to salute such a fine citizen and declared Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020, Annie Rimer Faust Day throughout the town of Blythewood.
Burial followed the service in Memorial Gardens on Highway 21, just down the road from where she was born and grew up.
