Anita Zarate Hall

With sorrow, we mark the passing of Anita Zarate Hall, 91, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend.  She passed away peacefully on May 21, 2019 at 10:05 pm.

Anita was born in 1927 in New York City on East 27th Street as the second daughter of Emilio and Tomasa Zarate. She moved to Queens with her family in the 1940s where she met and married William Hall, the love of her life, in 1951. They brought four children into the world and continued to live in Flushing until 1995, when they moved to Hampton, VA.  The house on the canal to the Chesapeake Bay was their retirement dream where Bill fished and Anita painted, with many glasses of wine enjoyed on the backyard deck.  Watching wildlife and water were a constant pleasure to both.  After her husband Bill passed in 2007, Anita continued living in the place they loved until 2017, still insisting on cutting her own grass at 89.  She was an avid reader of the entire New York Times until 90.  In 2018, her family moved her to Exton, PA to be closer to loved ones.

Anita had a full and interesting life. She worked as an Executive Secretary in Manhattan, then as a nursing assistant, and later, a bookkeeper while raising her four children with Bill.  While in her 50’s she earned a degree in accounting from Queens College, after which she worked for the NYC Department of Taxation and Finance.  After moving to Hampton, she was the accountant for Hall & Associates in Washington, DC, the business started by her sons John and Bill.  With a wonderful facility for numbers, she was never off by even a penny in her accounts. She loved to paint, read, and do crossword puzzles and took up piano at age 68. She enjoyed spending time with all her grandchildren, and particularly liked playing chess with her grandson, Chris.  She ensured a bond of love and companionship among her children and grandchildren by bringing the family together every year for a beach vacation in the Outer Banks. This member of The Greatest Generation and child of the Depression was strong, loving, intelligent, and possessed a formidable sense of sound ethics – traits she passed on to her children. Throughout their lives, Anita always encouraged and supported her children to be their best. She will be missed.

Anita is survived by her sister Gloria and her brother Tom. She is survived by her children and their spouses/significant others: William and Ilona Hall, John and Patricia Hall, Mary Beth Hall and Stuart Rymph, and Tom Hall and Michelle Montanya. She is survived by seven grandchildren (Jessica, Ryan (and Jen), Elizabeth (and Sarab), Diana (and Ethan), Christopher, Rebecca, and Tara) and one great grandchild (Sean).

A mass of Christian burial will be held for Anita at Saints Philip and James Church, in Exton, PA, on June 10, 2019 at 10:30 am.  Relatives and friends are invited to a Visitation 9:30-10:30 A.M.   Inurnment alongside her beloved husband will be at a later date in the Arlington National Cemetery Columbarium.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Anita’s name to Penn Hospice at (3535 Market Street, Suite 750, Philadelphia, PA  19104; hospice@dev.upenn.edu.; 215-573-1155