DECEMBER 20, 2018 // 7
SURVIVOR
Former Surfside, Wash., resident Anne Nixon publishes
book about battles with Alzheimer’s, cancer, polio
By PATRICK WEBB
FOR COAST WEEKEND
W
COURTESY ANNE NIXON
Anne Nixon, who used to live on the Long Beach Peninsula, has
published an account about navigating some of life’s biggest
challenges.
riter Anne Nixon believes
health challenges can be aid-
ed by one important trait.
“I was born with an optimistic
attitude and that really does help,” she
said.
The former Surfside resident has en-
dured the rigors of polio and two types
of colon cancer — as well as coping
with her late husband’s Alzheimer’s
disease.
Throughout it all, she said a positive
approach has been the key.
Her latest book, “How I Survived:
Alzheimer’s Cancer Polio” was re-
leased as an eBook and paperback last
month. It’s one of a half-dozen works
the 84-year-old has published to help
others.
“My book is a ‘how-to,’ telling
about attitude — that’s very important,”
she said. “I tell you how to find help
that you need to get, the names and
addresses of agencies that can help.”
Her first husband attended dental
school at Oregon Health Sciences Uni-
versity after he left the military in Cali-
fornia. During that time and afterward,
she picked up considerable awareness
of patients’ needs, working first as a
medical secretary, then learning to take
chest X-rays and draw blood.
“I worked in doctor’s offices all the
time, so I saw people who needed help.
There’s so much that I can tell people,
and that’s how I started writing this,
especially about Alzheimer’s.”
Nixon now lives in Petaluma, Calif.,
just north of San Francisco. Her second
husband, Don Nixon, who was living in
a memory care home, died earlier this
year.
After a divorce in the mid-1980s,
Anne Nixon had remained in San Jose,
Calif., and met Don, a private pilot who
encouraged her to learn to fly; their
longest trip was to visit his family in
Illinois. “My second marriage was ev-
erything I’d ever hoped for,” she said.
“A few years later, we sold every-
thing and bought an RV, and for 10
great years we traveled all over the U.S.
We were always looking for the ‘per-
fect spot,’” she said. “We came back to
the Northwest.”
The couple spent 32 years in Surf-
side, living in their home on 310th, en-
joying golf and clamming a few blocks
from the ocean and golf course. They
were especially close to the Stamp and
Kemmer families.
“Don golfed, rain or shine,” she said.
“He would even go out to play wearing
hip boots.”
Deep Peninsula roots
Peninsula roots ran deep. Her moth-
er’s family, the Heckes, had operated the
Oysterville Inn, having moved there in
1919. Glen Heckes, the son of the oldest
of four sisters, had been sent from Port-
land to buy cranberry land, but instead
became enamored with oysters.
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