Ann K. Pelto died at the Bellingham at Orchard in Bellingham, Washington, while under hospice care on April 10, 2026, at the age of 90.
Born in Colchester in 1936 to Althea Lathers and Joseph Vitch as Josephine Vitch, she was later adopted under the name of Ann Koch. She graduated Lenox Hill Hospital School of Nursing in 1957 with an RN degree and worked as an obstetrics and delivery nurse, in a pediatrician’s office, and as an IV therapist.
Ann successfully located her birth families in 1978, both of which welcomed her with open arms. When worsening health obliged her to stop working as an RN, she developed a second career as an independent adoption search consultant. She co-founded Adoption Search & Reconciliation, served as the Northwest regional director of the American Adoption Congress, and presented papers and ran workshops at the American Adoption Congress until her health no longer permitted. She helped many adoptees and birth parents to locate their birth families.
She loved reading and wrote fluently. She played the piano, she enjoyed cards, puzzles, and beachcombing and was a gifted baker. But her passion was family genealogy. She took great joy in her research expeditions that turned up new lines of third or fourth cousins.
She was predeceased by her beloved husband, Kalevi T. Pelto; her son, William P. Priest; all four of her parents; and her siblings, Riley Vitch, Philomena (Thelma) Vitch Gorman, Anthony Vitch, and Lester L. Lathers. She is survived by her two daughters, Carolyn (Greg) Priest-Dorman and Elisabeth Pelto; four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, several nieces and nephews, and innumerable cousins.
Burial (under the birth name she loved) was in Walton, New York, on July 20, 2026. Memorial donations may be made to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, of which she was a charter member.
