By Kathleen Kernicky
DELRAY BEACH — Anne Stokes Bright was a competitive tennis player in her 40s when she started having trouble holding her racket. She had pain in her joints. Not long after, she was diagnosed with lupus, an inflammatory disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack itself, damaging organs and tissues.
Mrs. Bright, a longtime resident of Delray Beach, lost her battle with lupus on Oct. 11. She was 83.
Mrs. Bright never let the disease put her on the sidelines.
She was a civic leader, volunteer and philanthropist who, over the years, raised more than $1 million for the Lupus Foundation of America.
A longtime supporter of the Achievement Centers for Children and Families in Delray Beach, Mrs.Bright served as a board member and co-founded the popular Delray Beach Home Tours, which benefited ACCF.
She was a member of the Delray Beach Rotary Club, a businesswoman, and a wife, mother and grandmother. She also owned and operated The Frame Factory for many years in Boca Raton.
Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Anne spent her childhood in Quebec, Maine, Manhattan and the Main Line in Philadelphia, where her grandparents were members of the prominent Biddle and Drexel families.
After graduating from the Chapin School in Manhattan, she moved to Delray Beach. In 1975, she married J. Reeve Bright, a lawyer who laterworked with the Republican Party in the Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election.
Together, they met U.S. presidentsand the pope, went to black-tie galas and spent summers in Maine.
“We became friends and then we became more than friends and that was the end of the story,” Reeve Bright said. “She was a kind, loving and generous person. I was blessed to have her for 51 years.”
In 2000, the Brights traveled to the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s canonization of Saint Katharine Drexel, who was a distant relative of Anne. “The pope blessed me and then Anne and she looked up at him and said, ‘may God bless you, too,’” Reeve recalled with a laugh. “I don’t remember what he said. I was so stunned.”
When Mrs.Bright began raising money for the Lupus Foundation, Reeve Bright worked beside her. In 2021, he was elected to serve as chairman of the national organization. Mrs. Bright was honored with the Fleur de Lis Award for volunteer fundraising.
“Anne deeply believed that no one living with lupus should feel alone and she dedicated her life to making sure they didn’t,” said Amy Yalden, division vice president of the Lupus Foundation of America Southeast Region.
“Anne’s legacy … lives in the countless people she touched, the hope that she gave and the community she helped build.”
“That was her whole drive,” Reeve Bright said. “She wanted to help other people who didn’t have what she had. She wanted them to have access to the best healthcare; to be able to pick up the phone and get information. … She wanted kids to be able to lift themselves up.
“I could bring home anyone, from President Ford to a panhandler, and she would always welcome them to the house and make them feel comfortable.” (Ford’s motorcade did make an unexpected stop at their house once.)
“She enjoyed people and enjoyed helping people. She really put her heart in it.”
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Bright is survived by two sons, Nicholas Bright, and from a previous marriage, Henry C.S. Mellon; and eight grandchildren. She was pre-deceased by a son, Matthew T. Mellon.
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