PORT ANGELES — A small-statured woman who stood tall in the cause of helping poor people, Anna Barrigan has died at the age of 85.
Barrigan died Dec. 6 in Olympic Medical Center of complications from hip-replacement surgery.
She had broken her hip in a fall she suffered attending a meeting of Clallam County Project Homeless Connect to plan its Thanksgiving meal.
Plans for a memorial service are pending.
Barrigan, a retired pharmacist in Fairbanks, Alaska, had moved to Kelso and then to Port Angeles in 1994.
She soon involved herself with the Salvation Army, Project Homeless Connect, the Shelter Providers Network, Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics and other charities.
She received a Clallam County Community Service Award in 2012, when Phyllis Hopfner — cofounder of a clinic for uninsured people run by the Port Angeles Association of Religious Communities — cited her service to PAARC and to Ministries Assisting Neighbors in Need with Agape (MANNA), and the Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics (VIMO) clinic that took over the PAARC clinic’s mission.
“At an age when most of us are inwardly focused, Anna continues to concern herself and actively participate in community, national and international affairs,” Hopfner said.
In his introduction of Barrigan at the award ceremony, Loran Olsen of the Sons of Norway said she had been “a servant of others in three different communities and has been doing it for her whole life.”
Olsen said Barrigan has been involved “in every supportive endeavor you can expect her to be in.”
She also served on the boards of directors of Olympic Community Action Programs and the Salvation Army.
Maj. Scott Ramsey of the Salvation Army in Port Angeles said Barrigan was short in stature but a giant in compassion.
He said it was unfortunate that she “is not going to see the completion of all her work when we open the new social service building in April.”
Reflecting on the recent theft of toys from a Salvation Army storage place — and the subsequent flood of donated gifts and money to replace them — Ramsey said, “she would have been knee-deep in that. She was an amazing lady.”
“I miss her,” Ramsey added. “The woman was involved in everything for service providers here in town for those who were less fortunate.
“She had boundless energy. At Christmas time she passed out information about our Christmas services at about 50, 60 locations.
“Every place someone should have known about our Christmas program, she visited personally.”
