Annie Glenn, Speech Disorder Advocate, Dies Of COVID-19

SAINT PAUL, MN — Annie Glenn, a speech disability advocate and the wife of the late astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn, died Tuesday from the coronavirus. She was 100.

Annie Glenn had been living at a nursing home near Saint Paul.

Glenn and her husband were married for 73 years before he died in 2016. After his death, she moved to Minnesota so she could live with her daughter, Lyn.

John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. Annie struggled with a severe stutter for most of her life, but she overcame it and went on to advocate for people with speech and other disabilities.

She worked for a communication disorder organizations and became an adjunct professor in the Speech Pathology Department at The Ohio State University’s Department of Speech and Hearing Science.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association created a national award named "The Annie" to recognize people with "Mrs. Glenn’s own invincible spirit," according to her obituary on the Ohio State University website.

Past recipients of the award include James Earl Jones, Vice President Joseph Biden, Julie Andrews, Mick Fleetwood and Jane Seymour.

"Annie Glenn was a special kind of public hero. She conquered her own personal challenge – her speech impediment – and appropriately used her position as the spouse of a prominent public person to help advocate for others who struggled as she did. She was also just a really warm and nice person. We’ll miss her as much as we do Senator Glenn," wrote Trevor Brown, the OSU dean of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

A virtual memorial service will be held for Glenn on Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m central. Find out more here.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.