Obituary of Anna H. (Kalinowsky) Dion

Anna Helen (Kalinowsky) Dion, 97, of Peabody died Saturday morning at the Rosewood Nursing Home in Peabody. She was the wife of the late Ernest Dion. She was born in Peabody, MA on June 24, 1912, the first child of the late Frank (Feodor) and Elizabeth (Belavich) Kalinowsky and was a lifelong resident of Peabody. She always resided in the East end of Peabody within earshot of the steeple bells at St. John the Baptist Church. Russian was the language spoken at the Kalinowsky home and she overcame that academic disadvantage to become an excellent student who aspired to become a teacher. Her mother died when Anna was 14 years old and she left school permanently to help her father bring up her siblings. She had been employed in the Peabody leather industry until she married her husband, Ernie in 1934. She became a full time mother and homemaker until her children were raised and then went to work in the Coat department at Filene’s at the North Shore Shopping Center. She started on the day Filene’s opened in 1957 and continued there for 20 years retiring in 1977. Anna was an avid reader who was a familiar face at the Peabody Institute Library and was a long time communicant at St. John the Baptist Church in Peabody. She was blessed with robust health until recently and would take the bus to walk around the Shopping Malls almost daily looking for clothing bargains. She would take her annual vacation out to California until she was 95. Recently as she began to get weaker, she was grateful for the care and concern of her grand nephew, Philip M. Kalinowsky of Salem. She is survived by her son, David Dion of San Francisco, CA, her sisters-in-law, Cecily Kalin of Framingham and Marie Kalinowsky of Salem and many nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews. She was the mother of the late Barbara Dion who died in 2008 and the sister of the late John, Michael and Roger Kalinowsky, Nellie Ronan and the sister-in-law of the late Josephine Kalinowsky. A visitation will be held on Tuesday from 5:00 until 8:00 PM at the Conway, Cahill-Brodeur Funeral Home at the 20 Church St., Peabody facility. Her Funeral will be held on Wednesday at 10:00 AM from the Funeral Home followed by a Funeral Mass in St. John the Baptist Church, Peabody at 11:00 AM. Burial will be in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Peabody. Expressions of sympathy may be made to St. John the Baptist Church Building Fund, 17 Church St.,Peabody, MA 01960 in her memory.