annewallace
The niece of Anne Wallace, Alanna Lungren, submitted this tale of one woman who clearly made a difference in the lives of others. Anne is a true Jumper, and it is our great honor to make her one posthumously.

IT IS FITTING that I first submit my aunt, Anne Wallace (McAndrews) to become a SheJumper, before I submit myself. Her countless jumps began long before I was born to her sister, my mother—my aunt’s fellow-lifelong jumping partner. One of the early jumps my aunt took was in high school, down in southern California at Long Beach Polytechnic. My aunt and my mom were successful junior golfers, but without a girls team to play on. Not a surprise in the late 1960s, but the boy’s high school golf team refused to let the sisters play with them. So, the sisters challenged the CIF (California’s governing body of high school sports) to play on Poly High’s Boys Golf Team. This petition was ultimately denied, but turned into a lawsuit filed by my grandfather, on the behalf of Anne, my mom, Nancy, and other girl golfers such as Laura Baugh (future LPGA star). This lawsuit would be carried on by other girls to finally help effect the 1972 passage of Title IX, the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.

The sisters, with Anne as the eldest leading the charge, were always found on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain, Snowmass, and Aspen in the winter. They barreled down the mountains on longboards with flowing long hair, beating their brothers to the bottom. These are the women that would later lead me to barrel down the slopes as a junior ski racer out of Squaw Valley. In the summers as teenagers, my aunt and mom hiked for weeks in the Sierra. They rendezvoused by a hair at Reds Meadows (Anne starting in Yosemite, my mom hitchhiking up Minaret Road in Mammoth just in time) to backpack the 211-mile John Muir Trail. The adventures to the summit of Mt. Shasta, surfing along the California coast and everywhere in between, my aunt sought the companionship of the outdoors in all forms. Before she was 30—after college and marriage—Anne (the trophied junior golf champion), got back into her swing, and while six-months pregnant, won the Los Angeles Amateur Open. In 1988, she battled her first round of cancer. Anne had to learn to speak again, and wore a long scar beneath her graceful jaw line. But, despite the obstacles thrown in her path, Anne continued to live in the most giving of ways, the type of person who brings out the best in everyone she meets. Anne raised her two children in the water, in the mountains and taught them the value of taking leaps themselves. My cousins and I learned how to catch waves at San Onofre, Golden West and Encinitas from Annie.

My aunt and my mom made sure we were taught the right ways to prepare for backpacking trips (one tenet, never forget the chocolate). With a streak of writers in the family, Anne encouraged all of us to express our ideas and seek knowledge. We learned how to listen and love, and always, how to adventure. Photobucket The Wallace sisters in Aspen. The past few years, my aunt battled subsequent rounds of cancer. The scar was reopened, and surgery took away everything from Anne, but her heart. She would never run again, surf, ski, or enjoy chocolate the way she used to. Her golf swing was obliterated by a severed trapezoid nerve, her right leg disabled by the removal of her fibula bone. Her beautiful face was misshapen by the break in her jaw and her mouth and throat would never swallow solid foods again. It seemed as though the most unfair of blows was leveled against my aunt. But, in spite of so much stolen from her, she still took leaps. She kept on writing, trying to finish her memoirs, and continued to publish in Golf Living. She smiled and never failed to offer her encouraging words to her family, her children, her nieces and nephews. A few months ago, she played eight holes with her 25-year-old son. Even though it took all her energy to get out of bed, she made sure she took her children on one last adventure to Costa Rica, just the three of them. She went on writing assignments, having her kids and my mom taste the foods, wine and play the golf courses that she would review.

In the fall of 2007, my aunt and my mom road-tripped to Yosemite, for what would be Anne’s last visit to the Sierra, a place she held as a cathedral. She started hiking up the Mist Trail, the trailhead of the great John Muir Trail she once trekked with my mom decades before, and so many times since. In her last days, my Aunt said she wanted to encourage girls to play golf, and so, in her honor, we created the “Wallace Sisters Foundation for Girls’ Golf at Long Beach Poly High.” My Aunt passed away Feb. 9, 2008, at 54. Anne was too young and with too many jumps she had yet to take, but, her inspiration for leaping lives on.

Alanna Lungren grew up in Squaw Valley, Calif. and is currently working on her degree in law. Her aunt, Anne Wallace, helped nurture Alanna’s love of surfing, golfing and always, the mountains. For more information on the Wallace Sisters Foundation for Girls’ Golf, please contact a_lungren@pacific.edu.