A Celebration of Her Life

Ann W. Bozdogan, 84, of Weston, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully at home on Wednesday, October 15, 2025. She was the devoted wife of Kirkor ("Kirk") Bozdogan, with whom she shared 63 years of marriage. Ann is survived by her brothers Mark, David, and Bob Willard. She is also survived by Bob's wife Jane Hamilton; their son Ben and his wife Erin; and their daughter Hannah, her husband James Yawn, and their children Hazel and Ruth (Ruthie).

Ann was born on December 9, 1940 in Madison, Wisconsin, where she grew up in a closely-knit family. Her father was John Ela Willard, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and one of the scientists actively engaged in the Manhattan Project during World War Two, who served in various capacities and played a key role in developing the uranium/plutonium chemical processing operations at Hanford, Washington, a critical part of the war effort. Her mother was Adelaide Ela Willard, of Rochester, Wisconsin, who was devoted to community service, helping as a volunteer at Attic Angels, a retirement and skilled nursing facility in the Madison area. Ann was blessed by having three brothers following her in birth order: Mark, David, and Bob, who have led productive lives.

Ann grew up in Madison in an idyllic setting of friendly, loving, neighbors. As a child, a yearly ritual she remembers well was delivering freshly baked cookies and assortment of Christmas goodies, made by her mother, a gifted and tireless cook, to every neighbor in the vicinity. This was a magical, pleasant, period. She enjoyed skating, hiking, swimming, and playing tennis. She loved music and got very good at playing the viola under the tutelage and guidance of her adored teacher, Mrs. Beatrice Hagen, step-mother of the actor Uta Hagen. She attended West High School and graduated in 1958. There she established strong lifelong relationships with her "peer group" of closely-knit friends.

The Willard home in Madison was a special, warm, welcoming place. In the 1950s, every Thanksgiving was celebrated with a big feast prepared lovingly and with great skill by her mother. This special event brought together well over a dozen graduate students of her father, who had, after the war, returned to the University of Wisconsin, named the Vilas Professor of Chemistry, and served as the Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Dean of the Graduate School. The students, all doctoral candidates, hailed from many corners of the world. After the feast, a pingpong tournament was a keystone event, and the convivial evening stretched longer.  Ann and Kirk met when they were both students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. They had joined the United Student Fellowship, a campus student organization associated with the First Congregational Church. Sponsored by the Church, Kirk had come from Turkey to pursue his higher education in the United States, after having graduated from Tarsus American College, a noted secondary school founded by American missionaries in the biblical city of Tarsus, in southern Turkey. At the University, Ann was enrolled in the innovative Integrated Studies Program, in the School of Education. One of her teachers was Carl Rogers, father of person-centered psychotherapy and author of On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy (1961). She excelled in playing the viola and, inevitably, played the viola in the University of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra. She graduated with a BS in Elementary Education in June,1962.

Soon after she and Kirk were married on August 4, 1962. They took the old family car, a blue Chevrolet, and made their way out east to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Kirk was doing his graduate studies at Harvard. Ann obtained a teaching job at Claypit Hill Elementary School in Wayland, Massachusetts, where she  taught third grade for the next forty-one years. She would spend countless hours just before the start of each school year to create a giant multicolored jigsaw puzzle that contained the names of all her new students, to welcome them, which they simply adored. She worked hard, every day, to prepare and actualize highly individualized lesson plans for every one of her third graders in all subject areas – reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies, and more. She lovingly and tirelessly touched, in a myriad positive ways, the lives of hundreds of her third-grade students.

The Claypit Hill School provided the ideal environment for Ann to grow and flourish both personally and professionally. She became a highly regarded, soughtafter teacher, working as part of a dream team, a collaborative group of incredibly dedicated, purposeful, and caring teachers, as Chester "Chet" Zwonik, her longserving Principal at Claypit Hill, will tell you. She retired from Claypit in 2004.

Ann and Kirk made their home in Weston, Massachusetts, in an old carriage house. Ann loved nature and outdoor activities, like climbing the White Mountains in New Hampshire (such as Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Washington [up to Tuckerman's Ravine], Mt. Moussalaki), cross-country skiing, camping, playing tennis, gardening, and biking around the Charles River in Cambridge and Boston. She closely followed the games of the Wisconsin Badgers and took delight in watching professional football, whenever she could, as a devoted Patriots fan. Music played a central role in her life. She was a long-time patron of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, never missed a performance, and loved seeing friends and colleagues during breaks for quick conversations. And, of course, she had to attend all the Clancy Brothers concerts every spring.

The high point every summer was visiting the family in Madison, traveling by train, bus, driving or flying, as the years rolled on. These family reunions, alongside the Christmas trips, were a source of both physical and mental replenishment. A side strip, always, was driving to Rochester, Wisconsin, the old family home on the mother side since the early nineteenth century, to visit with her brother Bob and his family, aunt Mary Ela, and uncle Ben Ela and his family. Picking apples at the expansive Ela Orchard -- owned and run by uncle Ben Ela, aunt Mary Ela, cousin Edwin Ela and brother Bob -- was a very special gift. Communing with the goats and the sheep on the orchard grounds, needless to say, was always an essential part of the visit.

Ann was blessed with having established close lifelong friendships with her small "peer group" and other friends, forged at West High School, as well as with close colleagues and co-workers at Claypit Hill. Well into her eighties, she relished every bit of news from the West High class of 1958 and loved participating in her peer group events and enjoyed continuous sharing of news. Especially, every year, with great punctuality, she savored exchanging Christmas card greetings with her best childhood friend and a matron at her wedding, Janet Douglas, who lived in Minnesota. She delighted in her periodic luncheon get-togethers with her "lunch bunch," her friends and colleagues from the magical Claypit Hill School days.

Ann and Kirk completely renovated their old carriage house in 2023 and early  2024, with the hope and expectation of spending many happy and comfortable years together there. Unfortunately, this was cut short by Ann's recent health issues. Her health, mostly her mobility, had been steadily declining. She spent nearly a year in rehab at Beaumont Assisted Care and Skilled Nursing facility, a part of the larger Whitney Place assisted-living complex in Natick, Massachusetts, while Kirk kept close to her by living as an independent resident in an apartment on the same campus prior to their return to their newly renovated house in April 2024. Since then, Ann received homecare from FirstLight Homecare, with dedicated caregivers meeting all her caregiving needs, and doing this in the most thoughtful and compassionate way possible, as they have come to love her.  Also, in deep gratitude, both during the past year and earlier, she received exceptional medical care at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Wellesley, Masschusetts.

Ann, throughout her life, lived the good life, nourished by her deep, religiously rooted, family values. The thick Willard genealogy is punctuated by a long list of ministers, including her grandfather, Wallace W. Willard, as well as Wallace's father John. Teaching Sunday school to children in her youth and attending church at the First Congregational Church in Madison, as well as at First Church in Cambridge Congregational, United Church of Christ (UCC), over many years after she had moved out east was not an obligation but a deep-seated spiritual journey, nourished by the sounds of those wonderful old, familiar, hymns. Ann welcomed new ideas, read a great deal, kept an independent mind, and thought well of others. She was a positive, kind, thoughtful, and giving person, always with a big smile on her face. This is why she was loved by all who have met her.