The Georgia Scroll
January 1998
The Great Carnac Meets Ann Longshore
By: Alan Goldberg, FHFMA, CPA, CHPA
After a premonition that "DeKalb" would play an important role in her life, Ann Longshore went to see the Great Carnac for a reading. When she arrived, the Great Carnac pulled out his envelope, held it up to his forehead in his customary way, and said, "Fat Man, Little Boy, and the stock market." She guessed at the interpretation, assuming that this meant that she would marry someone overweight and have a nice family when she graduated from DeKalb High School. The Great Carnac opened the envelope and read the question contained on the paper therein, "Name three things that are better viewed on their way up". Ann, somewhat puzzled, wouldn’t realize until some years later that she would be a part of the final land force that would help load the atomic bombs soon to be delivered to Japan.
Ann Longshore was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, located in DeKalb County in the northeastern part of the state, a city whose claim to fame is the now famous band Alabama. While still in high school, Ann gravitated towards the glamour side of life, being designated the "first high school cheerleader in captivity", (as she tells it), and serving in many leading roles in her high school’s plays. She was always ahead of her time, whereby school authorities approached her desperately requesting that she delete expletives in her leading role in the play, "Smiling Through". This play, which she performed in her senior year, challenged her acting and physical abilities by requiring that she vault a virtually insurmountable wall and relentlessly scream to the audience at the top of her voice, "My God, the bull’s after me!"
Although Fort Payne was located only a little more than 100 miles from Atlanta, Ann would travel almost 5,000 miles to new homes throughout the United States before she finally arrived at her current home in Atlanta. Ann’s travels began when she met her husband, Bob, just after high school. Since he was a civil engineer with the State, Ann soon discovered that she had developed a proclivity for bouncing from place to place and refined her new-found talents for moving. During her first five years of marriage, they moved fifteen times, including a move to Denver, Colorado, and then subsequently to an area near the Mojave desert.
Upon her arrival at the Mojave, Ann joined the civilian side of the Air Force for several years while her husband pursued his civil engineering contract to help develop Edwards Air Force base. The Mojave desert’s daytime temperatures during the summer months usually exceeded 100 degrees and Ann was glad to find that her next move was to a cooler climate, Martinez, California, in northern California near San Francisco. Here she joined the civilian side of the Navy where her primary responsibilities included shipping munitions and war supplies.
Ann, accustomed to playing in the leading role, participated this time on
July 16, 1945, in assuring that the secretly boxed atomic bombs, named Little Boy and Fat Man, and respective component parts were loaded onto the transport at Port Chicago. The transport, in turn, delivered these important devices to the USS Indianapolis, who was unable to enter the shallow waters and hence anchored in the deeper portion of the harbor waiting for the bombs. At the time, Ann and her commanding officers weren’t sure what the secret weapons were, but managed to quickly send the USS Indianapolis on its way. The Indianapolis went on its fateful voyage to deliver the secret bombs to Tinian Island in the Marianas Islands, and arrived with the goods on July 26, 1945. As history would have it, after this delivery, the Indianapolis left the island group to become the last ship to be sunk by a Japanese submarine during the war.
After the war, Ann continued as a civilian with the Navy. She saw some of the unused parts and secretly boxed nuclear materials pass back through the area subject to her purview on their way back into the United States. Ann learned her organizational politics when she had to put her foot down to the Army so that they would not get the nuclear parts that they demanded she ship to them. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she would win the discussion. Everyone knows that dynamite comes in small packages!
Her next challenge was when the government allowed the civilian longshoremen to begin loading the Navy ships. The longshoremen had just gotten started loading the Navy ships when they decided to go on strike. Ann had driven her car to work the day that the strike started, and the commanding officers, concerned for her safety when she left for the day, offered her a ride on a bus. Of course, not one to have her independence compromised, Ann turned down the offer to ride on the bus with the rest of the Navy civilians. Instead, she drove out in her car, smiling and waving to all of the longshoremen who happened to be her good friends. Later, an Admiral showed up to investigate the strike and called Ann into his office. Ann wondered what he could possibly want from her. She wandered up to his office and when she entered, he didn’t speak for a few moments. Finally, Ann broke the silence and asked why he had called her to his office. Looking straight into her eyes he said that with all of the strike problems that they were having with the longshoremen could Longshore really be her last name? She answered yes and he proceeded to say that he was glad that he didn’t have anyone working there with the last names of "Doctor" or "Dentist."
Ann finally decided it was time to return back east, and went into the insurance business with her cousin, doing real estate on the side. It wasn’t long, however, before she noted that a new hospital was being constructed in Decatur. She couldn’t help herself, figuring that since the hospital was new, not many people would know more than she did at the hospital, and applied for the position of admitting clerk. She interviewed with Mary Lou Fountain, the admissions director at DeKalb Medical Center, and took the job. Within one year, Charles Anderson, CFO, offered her the Business Office Manager position, a position she would retain for the next 23 years, and Mary Lou found herself reporting to Ann.
During the time that she served as business office manager, Ann dealt with many complex technical business office and other issues. As we all know, it’s the other issues that always prove to be the most difficult. In particular, Ann found herself dealing with such issues as how to iron checks after they had become wet from a sitz bath overflow on the floor above, and how to eliminate the smell of collards from the hospital lobby emanating from her business office’s covered dish luncheon. Ann continued working with DeKalb Medical Center, performing her usual marvelous feats, and averaging a staff of 90 employees reporting to her. It was only several years ago that Ann supposedly decided to retire and went to work with Diversified Account Systems.
During her time with DeKalb Medical Center, Charles Anderson, who was to become HFMA National president, got Ann involved with the Georgia Chapter when Ann asked if she could join AGPAM. Ann not only got involved, she increased Chapter membership, improved its bottom line, and went on to become a two-term President, the only member to have ever done so in the Chapter’s history. She also briefly mentioned as one her HFMA accomplishments, the commencement of the hotel room party concept at Institutes. It was extremely important that this concept be fully developed, since at the time she was President, the Chapter had no corporate sponsors. Additionally, after Ann completed her terms as President, she enrolled in DeKalb Medical Center’s preparatory course for serving in a National HFMA position. It was the same one that Charlie Anderson had previously taken and that Bonnie Phipps took when she arrived at the Hospital. It is also rumored that copies of this course were slipped to Tom Satterfield and Glenn Black. Once Ann completed this course, she went on to serve on the National Matrix. She also received the Most Valuable Member Award, all Founders Awards, including the Medal of Honor, and served as the Chapter Statistical Secretary for years. Finally, in 1989, the Chapter designated that an annual award be given in her honor, named the Ann P. Longshore Distinguished Service Award.
Our leading lady, also a world traveler, has been to Europe, Greece, Alaska, through the Panama Canal, Mexico, the Caribbean, and to England. She is extremely proud of her two sons, two granddaughters, two grandsons, and four great grandchildren. Her family tree reaches in different directions with one son working as a professor at Humboldt University in California, where he teaches geology, and the other son, a retired lieutenant colonel, living in Warrenton, Virginia. Both of her granddaughters are well-known for their writing talents. One of them writes romance novels and has just published her first novel in French. The other granddaughter has recently married and moved to a home in Kent, England where she’s a freelance author and freely accept visits from her world traveler grandmother. Her grandsons, on the other hand, have diversified their careers. One grandson lives in Seattle, is in the Navy, and participated in the Gulf War. The other grandson is employed by a research-engineering firm and lives in Salt Lake City.
Ann Longshore is one of our Chapter’s most prestigious members. She continues to participate in all Chapter Institutes and supports the Chapter in her own unique ways. All of us in the Chapter are proud of her and her accomplishments.
Alan is President of Preferred One, LLC , an MSO, and Vice President with Renaissance Healthcare Group, both based in Tennessee. Alan has previously served as Chapter Officer and Board Member.