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In October, 1994, Annalee Skarin "was found in the one place she told thousands she would never go..."
Annalee Skarin, aka Nan Mathews, died on Sunday 17 January 1988 at 9:50am, at the Cedars Convalescent Hospital, Red Bluff, California, where she had spent the last two years of her life. She was 88 years old. Annalee's husband, Reason Skarin, died in 1982.
Her gravestone at the Sunset Hill Cemetery, Corning, California, reads:
Her funeral, held on 20 January, was attended by six people. Paid for by
her landlady - Annalee had told her that she had no family.
Annalee was re-baptised into the LDS Church on June 15, 1995. Her temple
blessings were restored on June 20, 1995.
Annalee was born at American Falls, Idaho, on 7 July, 1899, the ninth child of Frederick John Kohlhepp and Mary Ella Hickman. Her father, a Jewish convert to mormonism, died when Annalee was nineteen. She was the grand-daughter of William Adams Hickman.
Her first marriage to William Gorman ended in annulment. She had a male child who died at nine months. After the marriage ended she served a mission in California where she met Reason Skarin - her true love. However, they were not to marry for another twenty-one years. Annalee was to express that it was the forces of darkness that had kept them apart. She lived with him in her heart, and he, with a tiny photo of her on his mantelpiece.
After her mission she wed Hugo Avarell in 1922 and had another son, who died at birth, and two daughters - Linda Moat and Hope A. Hilton. It was an unhappy marriage that lasted until 1943. When her daughters were teenagers Annalee left for Buffalo, New York, and married the real love of her life. Reason Skarin was a convert from her California mission.
It appears that Annalee Skarin went to great lengths to keep her whereabouts hidden, both in life and death, or so her eldest daughter Hope Hilton believes. Hope and her husband searched diligently for more than thirty years to find her mother - the last time Hope saw Annalee was in May 1952 in Chicago. At that time Annalee was on her way to Salt Lake City. In June she would be excommunicated from the LDS Church - two weeks later she would claim to have "translated".
It should be noted that Hope, herself, played a part in Annalee's excommunication. Her husband submitted a study he made of Annalee's books to a church elder, Mark E. Petersen, outlining disagreeable elements in her work. Hope fully supported her husband's actions.
In an article in Sunstone April, 1991, Hope wrote that her mother "was a paranoid schizophrenic who listened to an inner voice whose tapes were often garbled. She was a dramatic actress who sought center stage and applause while proclaiming humility. She was a master of cover-up which only those on the inside could see." She believes that Annalee's "translation" was a means of escape after her excommunication. "She chose this route and, once chosen, it could not be reversed. If her earthly body was found subject to mortality her claim would be exposed to the world as a lie."
Whenever Hope would visit her younger sister, Linda, they would argue about their mother's sanity. Both have lists of more than twenty different addresses where Annalee and Reason Skarin lived since 1952, as well as numerous aliases they both used, to keep their identities veiled. Reason quit his job as a police officer a year before he was due to receive a pension. The latter years of both their lives are reported to have been spent in poverty. In the last years of Annalee's life the State of California was paying for all of her needs. When Annalee died she left a $1400 debt owed to the State that was paid by her landlady.
How did Hope find her mother after all those years? She sent $5 to Mr Charles H. Crookston in San Francisco to locate her mother's death certificate. The only information Hope could supply was her mother's name and birthdate and the name of her last husband. Mr Crookston initially did a search for the death certificate of Reason Skarin due to his unusual name. This proved easy to find. As Reason needed a free burial place in the service section of the cemetery, documents disclosing his identity were necessary. The discovery of Reason Skarin's death certificate lead to the death certificate of Nansela Mathews, aka Annalee Skarin. Her death certificate number: 3-88-52-000029
Did Annalee Skarin shroud herself in mystery to keep the focus away from her personality, or did she purposely create an alluring veil of intrigue with the intention of gathering a dedicated audience? If the focus was not to be on herself why did she write the The Sons of God under the pen name of Christine Mercie...
Those interested in further details should read:
"The Puzzle of Annalee Skarin: Was She Translated Correctly?", by Samuel W. Taylor
"A Daughter's Response or The Inside View", by Hope A. Hilton
Both articles in "Sunstone", Volume 15:1, April, 1991.
"Solving the Mystery of Annalee Skarin the Disappearing Mystic", by Carolyn Campbell - Hope Hilton, respondent
Audio tape #224
All of the above are available from Sunstone Foundation, 343 North 300 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84103-1215
Also, The Marriott Library in Salt Lake City holds the Hope Hilton collection with extensive material and documents covering the life of Annalee Skarin, including her last unpublished manuscript.
