Anne Bryan, 24, art student
Anne Bryan's accomplishments were many and varied. She was a talented artist, majoring in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She spoke fluent Spanish. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and moonlighted as a vegetarian cook.
Anne Bryan's accomplishments were many and varied.
She was a talented artist, majoring in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She spoke fluent Spanish. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and moonlighted as a vegetarian cook.
On Thursday, her family was reeling from her death. Ms. Bryan, 24, of Lower Merion, was killed Wednesday, June 5, while shopping at the Center City Salvation Army thrift store crushed when the building next door collapsed during demolition work.
"She was a gentle soul and very concerned with social justice," said her father, John W. "In family discussions, she was always very concerned with doing the right thing."
"She was passionate about women's rights and donated to women's causes," he said.
During the 2012 election, Ms. Bryan worked as an intern for the Obama campaign.
Her mother, City Treasurer Nancy E. Winkler, described her daughter as "joyful."
"She just loved to give to other people," Winkler said.
Ms. Bryan's grandmother Joanne Bryan recently had a hip replacement. Ms. Bryan had taken the older woman shopping last Friday, telling her "it was life-affirming to put on new clothes," Winkler said.
Ms. Bryan attended Scripps College in California from 2008 to 2011. During that time, she completed a home stay in a rural village in Ecuador.
Her father said that with her decision to move back to Philadelphia to attend art school, "she had finally found her place."
A camper and hiker, she had just spent Memorial Day weekend in the Shenandoah Mountains with her older brother, Chris, and learned to light a fire by rubbing sticks together, her father said.
In addition to her mother, father, brother, and grandmother, she is survived by aunts, uncles, and cousins.
The family is planning a memorial at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with a date to be determined.
John Bryan said the family wants to cast in bronze a sculpture that his daughter made in art school, "now that she's not going to be making any more."