Ann Arenberg Gips, a fiercely independent woman and a beloved mother and grandmother, died peacefully at her home at Stonebridge at Montgomery on December 16th, 2014, surrounded by her loved ones. She was 89.

She was the daughter of Claire and Albert Arenberg. A native of Highland Park, IL, Ann graduated from Wellesley College in 1947. In 1948, she married the love of her life, Walter F. Gips, Jr., and the two of them spent the next fifty years together: supporting a wide variety of causes, traveling the world, appreciating the arts and music, and raising their four children, first in Highland Park, IL and later in Princeton, New Jersey. Ann did graduate studies in social work, held leadership roles at both the Princeton Senior Resource Center and the New Jersey State Museum, and was an early supporter of Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights.

In her twenties, she contracted and survived polio. Despite polio's lasting effects on her physical abilities, Ann had an indomitable will and was active in her community, both through volunteering and through philanthropy, and in her role as a loving and opinionated wife and mother. At dinner with many of her children and grandchildren just weeks before she died, a friend passing by noted, "You look like a mama bear." "I am," Ann replied proudly. She cherished her role as a matriarch: for her children, for her children's friends, for her children's children, and, of course, for her dogs.

She is predeceased by her beloved husband, Walter F. Gips, Jr. who passed in 2002 and her brother Henry X Arenberg. Ann is survived by her son Walter F. Gips III "Terry", wife Annalee Wolf and children Gloriana, Adam, Noah and Aaron of St. Louis Park, MN; son Rob Gips, wife Karen Harris and children Rachel, Allie and Sara (husband Gavin Goodall) of Cape Elizabeth, ME; son Don Gips, wife Liz Berry and children Sam, Peter and Ben of Washington, DC; daughter Ellen Nee, children PJ, Jamie and Amelia of Ballyconneely, Ireland; sister Jane Eiseman of St. Louis, MO; and sister-in-law Joan Arenberg of Highland Park. IL.

Services will be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, December 19 in the auditorium of Stonebridge at Montgomery, 100 Hollinshead Spring Road, Skillman, New Jersey, and will be followed by a burial at Princeton Cemetery.

Donations may be made to the Princeton Senior Resource Center, Planned Parenthood, or the Alliance for Sustainability.