Remembering “Annie”

A Huntington Beach homeless woman named Ann “Annie” Bonelli was remembered Sunday afternoon by friends, family and neighbors as good person who put others before herself.

She was often seen wearing an Edison High School swim team jacket given to her by a local teenager who saw her hunkering cold one day. Seeing her in that jacket made her fit in as part of the community, but it didn’t take her off the streets.

Roughly 30 people gathered at Huntington State Beach for the memorial to say farewell to the 56-year-old woman who was struck and killed Tuesday night (Valentine’s Day) as she crossed Pacific Coast Highway at Newland Street.

Tamara John, a local pastor of the Hope for Life Chapel (RV Ministry) who resides in the mobile home park just steps from where Annie was killed, headed up the prayer service this afternoon. She told those who gathered that she ran out to the street after she heard the crash and saw Annie in the roadway. She lay down in the street next to the injured woman and said a prayer for her as they awaited paramedics’ arrival. Bonelli later died that night at the hospital.

Those who knew her best were other homeless people who protected her and say she had a big heart.

One of them cooked her a steak dinner for her that night on Valentine’s Day, just hours before she was killed.

The message most of those gathered wanted to deliver was that to honor Annie is to acknowledge others who are homeless simply by saying hello or spending time with them instead of just walking by.

Michelle Pleytez, of La Verne, Bonelli’s niece was there to pay her respects with her husband and 2 1/2 year old daughter Sofia. She said that even though Annie didn’t have much, she always had a little something to give her toddler when they would visit her.

“No matter how little Ann had, she was always willing to give it to anyone else that needed it,” said Michelle Pleytez, Ann’s niece, of La Verne. “She had a really big heart.” Ann is survived by three children, Robert Bonelli, Mark Bonelli, and her daughter Laura and her mother, Esther Notthoff, brother Raymond Notthoff and sister, Carol Happach.