Annabel Ebert

Annabel Stumm Ebert was born on May 1, 1911 in Taylorville, Christian County, Illinois, United States.

Her parents were William H. and Anna B. (Gleeson) Stumm. Her siblings were Martha Stumm of Wapella, Illinois; Mary (Stumm) O'Neil of Urbana, Illinois; and William M. Stumm of Wapella, Illinois.

On September 25, 1937, she married Walter H. Ebert in Urbana, Illinois. Their only child, Roger Ebert, became a famed Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic.

Annabel worked as a bookkeeper in the family's hometown of Urbana. She and her husband were politically liberal, as their son would come to be as well, even praying for Harry Truman to win in 1948. A committed Catholic, she also prayed for her son to become a priest, sending him to Catholic school and seminary retreats and having him study Latin in high school for early training.

His his memoir, Roger Ebert described his mother as a "controlling, alcoholic, faith-obsessed mother whom he was frightened of displeasing," adding that he would never marry before her death. In a blog posting, Roger wrote:

"She believed in the faith until the hour of her death. In her final days, she lapsed into a comatose state. She didn't respond to questions, and her eyes remained closed. Under her breath, barely audible, she repeated the 'Hail, Mary' over and over. She was buried from St. Patrick's Church, and I tipped the altar boys."

She died on June 4, 1987 in Urbana, and is buried at the town's Woodlawn Cemetery next to her husband and with his parents nearby.

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=92205001
• http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/17320958-418/roger-ebert-dies-at...
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/s-brent-plate/roger-eberts-religion_b...
• http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/06/my_vocation_as_a_priest.html