Ann E. Rasmussen
She “had a six-year battle with breast cancer and fought heroically,” but Ann Elizabeth Rasmussen “never let the disease get the better of her,” her husband, George Fontanals, wrote.
Ms. Rasmussen, a freelance writer, wrote a blog throughout her illness, sharing her physical and emotional ups and downs and her day-to-day observations as she coped with the disease and treatments. “Readers say they laughed, they cried, they were inspired. I don’t know,” Ms. Rasmussen wrote on her website, “I just wrote from the heart and hoped people would like it and maybe learn something.”
Ms. Rasmussen died at home on Fresh Pond Road in Amagansett on Sunday. She was 51.
“Believe it or not there is a sweetness to cancer, whether it’s the kindness and goodness that it brings out in others, or the kindness and goodness you start giving to yourself,” she wrote on her website, annrassmussenwriter.com.
Ms. Rasmussen had her work published in The East Hampton Star and The East Hampton Press, where she wrote about the local real estate market. Also a real estate broker and developer, she split her time between Amagansett and Manhattan.
She was born on the Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois on Oct. 17, 1967, to Paul T. Rasmussen and the former Joan Daly, both of whom survive. She grew up in New York City and Schenectady, N.Y., earning her undergraduate degree from Hamilton College and her master’s degree from New York University.
Ms. Rasmussen was married to Mr. Fontanals on Sept. 17, 2004.
She taught history and English at the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan and the Ross School in East Hampton before entering real estate.
She enjoyed the outdoors, writing in July, “I hope and pray I can do all the physical things I love again like paddleboard, cross-country ski, and bike riding.”
In addition to her husband and parents, who live in Schenectady, she is survived by three siblings, Tod Rasmussen of Boston, Sarah Eapen of San Francisco, and Alicia Weiner of Maryland.
A service will be held at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton on Dec. 8 at noon.
Her husband has suggested contributions to the cancer advocacy organization Fighting Chance, P.O. Box 1358, Sag Harbor 11963