Anne (Accardo) Horvitz

Anne Accardo Horvitz, age 81, passed away on April 18, 2023, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was born on May 13, 1941, in Torrington, Connecticut, to Gaetano and Mary (Balsamo) Accardo. She was educated in the Torrington public schools and graduated from Torrington High School in 1959 as salutatorian of her class. She won a full scholarship to attend Connecticut College in New London, form where she graduated in 1963. She was invited to join Phi Beta Kappa and won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study at Harvard University. She received a Master of Arts degree in
Classics from that university. For the next 11 years she lived in New Haven, Connecticut, where she worked in various part time teaching jobs. While she was in New Haven she met her husband, Dr. Richard Horvitz, who was doing a residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. They were married on July 23, 1977, and shortly thereafter moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan where he took a position as a partner with Laboratory Pathologists PC (later Michigan Pathology Specialists PC), the pathology and laboratory medicine professional group serving Butterworth Hospital (later Spectrum Health). After a few years of teaching jobs, she entered the Cooley Law School in Lansing, from which she received a law degree in 1983. For 32 years she maintained a solo law practice in which she did family law, juvenile court, and personal injury work. After retiring from her legal practice in 2015, she found a third career leading book discussions in the OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) program at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids. She gave discussions on a wide variety of authors, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Edna Ferber, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis, and others. She was passionate in her work in this area, reading multiple works by each author and spending hours doing research on the author and his
works. She was all prepared to give a program on Jack London, which had to be cancelled because of her final illness. Aside from her teaching and legal careers, she was a passionate animal lover, especially of Samoyed dogs. She owned and showed Samoyeds for over 30 years, finished four AKC champions, and showed her dogs at Westminster five times, even once showing her own dog herself on the floor of Madison Square Garden. She also owned, and loved, Pomeranians and Persian cats. Another one of her passions was classic Jaguar automobiles, including a 1989 XJS V-12 convertible.
She leaves two sisters, Theresa (Sloane) and Arlene (LaMere), both of Torrington, and was predeceased by her parents and her other siblings Carl, Mary (LaBrutto), Philip, and Thomas. She was a strong believer in the Lord and Jesus Christ, and a devoted follower of the Roman Catholic Church. A private entombment service was held in Torrington, Connecticut. Memorial contributions in her memory may be made to the Lucky Fund at the Michigan State University School of Veterinary Medicine. University Advancement Spartan Way 535Chestnut Rd Room 300 East Lansing MI 48824.    www.phalenfuneral.com

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