Anne Limbaugh dies, leaves legacy of caring

Anne Limbaugh, whose legacy of caring helped shape Cape Girardeau, died Wednesday at her home in St. Louis after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. She was 87.

Friends on Thursday remembered the longtime Cape Girardeau resident as a kind and caring person who always sought to help others.

Cape Girardeau resident Mary Kasten, a former state representative, remembered Anne Limbaugh was “always helping someone out.”

Kasten added, “She was just a caring, loving person. I certainly will miss her.”

The wife of former federal Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr., Anne Limbaugh was active in community service from 1951 to 1983 while living in Cape Girardeau.

She and her husband subsequently moved to St. Louis.

She and others organized the Cape Girardeau Civic Center to help disadvantaged children and families. She established a well-baby clinic, which provided free inoculations for more than 5,000 infants and children.

She founded the Meals on Wheels program to deliver meals to the elderly.

She was the first president of Mid-America Teen Challenge, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. She formed the Teen Challenge thrift store to raise funds for the center.

As a charter member of the Southeast Hospital Auxiliary, she established the hospital’s snack bar.

Early on, the Cape Girardeau Jaycees honored her as the “Outstanding Young Woman of the Year.”

She directed the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts for 10 years and assisted with numerous other programs and services.

Peter Kinder, a former lieutenant governor of Missouri and friend of the Limbaugh family, said Anne Limbaugh aided “the underprivileged” in Cape Girardeau for more than three decades.

“She was constantly involved in helping the less fortunate,” he recalled.

“She was always driving somewhere, taking food to someone, helping someone whose car broke down,” he said. “She would go to the grocery store and shop for people.”

Kinder said, “She was fun to be around, positive and upbeat.”

Nancy Bray worked with Limbaugh in the Meals on Wheels program for years. Established in 1974, Meals on Wheels operated for 37 years before the Cape Girardeau Senior Center took over the meal delivery program.

When it began, the program had seven recipients. That number grew to more than 100, Bray recalled.

Bray said Limbaugh “was a smart woman who knew how to work with people.”

Limbaugh had a “vibrant” personality, she said. “There was just an energy about her I felt.”

Bray said Limbaugh was so committed to Meals on Wheels she even had her sons and their friends “doing routes.”

While she married into a prominent Cape Girardeau family, friends said Limbaugh never sought the limelight.

“She was not one to seek attention at all,” Bray said.

Limbaugh, she said, believed “if you find something that needs to be done, then just do it.”

Bray said, “She dared to do it.”

Anne Limbaugh is survived by her husband, Stephen, along with three sons — Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., James P. Limbaugh and Andrew T. Limbaugh — and five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. today at Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau. Funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the church, followed by burial at New Lorimier Cemetery.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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