‘With a smile:’ Family, friends remember Annie Eisner for her hardworking, joyous nature
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Annie Blair Eisner began writing her memoir when she was 18 years old. Her chapter titles included “A redhead named Annie”; “A bris for my finger”; “The time I failed my driver’s test”; and “When life hands you leukemia.”
But this was not Annie’s final chapter of the memoir. Her fifth chapter was entitled “Trendsetter.”
“Being sick was just a chapter of her life — a part of it — but it wasn’t what defined her,” Jodi Eisner, Annie’s mother, said.
Annie, a rising junior studying public relations in Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, died on Aug. 25 at age 20 after a three-and-a-half-year-long battle with acute myeloid leukemia.
Annie was born and raised in Livingston, New Jersey with her parents, Jodi and Andrew Eisner, and her older sister, Lainie Eisner, a PhD student in biomedical engineering at Cornell University. She attended Temple Beth Shalom Preschool and Mount Pleasant Elementary School, and graduated from Livingston High School in 2021.
“Everyone always says she was like sparkles and rainbows and that’s like the perfect description of who she was,” said Gabriella Sara Izversky, a junior studying business and communications at SU.
Izversky and Annie were friends from kindergarten through college at SU. Izversky described Annie as extremely positive and always smiling, even during her battle with cancer.
“She was always happy,” Andrew Eisner, Annie’s father, said. “Nothing ever bothered her.”
Annie danced at Michele’s Dance Studio in Livingston for 14 years, participated as a cast member in AM Wired – a selective student-produced morning television daily broadcast show at her high school– and worked at a local boutique.
Jodi Eisner described Annie as a “pop-culture aficionado” with a great sense of humor and a love for reality television, celebrity gossip, podcasts, music and dancing.
Annie and Izversky used to host “The Bachelor” watch parties at the Eisner home. One of Izversky’s favorite memories of their friendship was Annie’s planning of a season finale event in her home, where the girls watched the show together with themed decorations and food.
Annie spent seven of her summers attending Camp Lokanda, a sleepaway camp located in Glen Spey, New York, where she met some of her closest friends.
“(She was) very upbeat, bubbly, happy, sparkly,” Olivia Dublin, one of Annie’s former bunkmates at the camp, said. “One of those people who just when they’re happy, you’re happy to be around them.”
Dublin, a junior studying advertising at SU, met Annie when they began attending Camp Lokanda together in 2012. Annie and Dublin continued their friendship at SU, where they were both active members of SU’s Sigma Delta Tau sorority chapter.
“My mom always tells us the story of us on our first visiting day (of camp),” Dublin said. “All the parents are going to leave and Annie was sitting on her bed, hysterically crying because her parents are about to walk out the door. And when her parents walked out the door, she opened up a container of cookies and started shoveling them down her throat while she was still crying.”
Dublin said her mother always tells this story because it makes her laugh, as Annie was so sad but also so happy to have the cookies after her parents left the camp.
Her love of cookies translated to her charity work, as Annie hosted annual cookie sales to raise thousands of dollars for Cycle for Survival. The organization is the official fundraising campaign for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a cancer treatment and research institution in New York City for rare blood cancers.
The Eisner family became very involved in the organization, which was founded in the family’s hometown. At age 11, Annie held her first cookie sale. She raised about $10,000 for the organization throughout her years of sales, Jodi Eisner said.
Both Dublin and Eisner emphasized that Annie’s cookie drives began before she received her diagnosis in January 2020 of acute myeloid leukemia, a rare type of blood cancer.
“It was something that she was very connected to and our whole family has been involved in, and I think the irony that she got one of these cancers doesn’t escape us,” Jodi Eisner said.
After she was diagnosed, friends of the Eisners, affectionately referred to as their “cookie angels,” took over the cookie sale for Annie, raising another $10,000 for the organization in 2020, Jodi Eisner said.
Though Annie was accepted into all 12 of the colleges she applied to, Jodi Eisner said, she chose SU because it offered her everything she wanted — Greek life, sports, a respected public relations program and plenty of opportunities for involvement.
Izverksy and Annie maintained their friendship throughout their time together at SU, despite being in different sororities. Izversky said that accepting Annie’s invitation to one of Sigma Delta Tau’s date nights last spring was a memory she’ll cherish forever.
“It was one of the last times I had an individual three hours with her, and we gossiped and we had so much fun,” Izversky said.
During Annie’s time at college living with cancer, Jodi Eisner said SU accommodated Annie when times were more difficult for her health, allowing her to have the best college experience she could academically.
Karen McGee, assistant dean of student success in Newhouse, said that she was first acquainted with Annie during the spring semester of her freshman year to discuss necessary health accommodations.
“She was very, very determined to not let her illness get in the way of her learning and her college goals,” McGee said.
McGee worked with professors to ensure Annie would be able to participate in her Newhouse classes via Zoom when she was home or in the hospital. McGee called Annie a “tenacious student” who saw her diagnosis as a challenge rather than a setback.
Anthony D’Angelo, a professor of practice and interim department chair in Public Relations, taught Annie in an introductory public relations course in the spring of 2022. He said Annie was “unbelievably engaged and productive,” despite attending class virtually from the hospital for the first half of the semester.
“Annie then returned to campus and, still battling for her health, came to class in person and fulfilled every single commitment on individual and team assignments,” D’Angelo wrote in an email to the Daily Orange. “I’ll never forget Annie, and, like me, our students and faculty are grateful to have known such an inspiring person.”
McGee said she checked in with Annie every semester and was always impressed by her determination.
“The PR world lost a real potential there,” McGee said.
Annie was also involved in Syracuse Hillel, Women in Communications, Public Relations Student Society of America, Newhouse Ambassadors and Fetch Collective Magazine at SU.
“As a new organization, we had to build from the ground up, and it was a grind trying to get Fetch up and running, but it was people like Annie who made it happen,” Founder and previous Editor-in-Chief of Fetch Collective Sophie Lynch said.
Lynch worked with Annie, who served as the platform’s PR Director, from the start of Fetch Collective to the end of her senior year this spring. Lynch said she remembers seeing Annie’s application — one of the first to come in — and was inspired by Annie’s love of the industry and determination to make it more inclusive.
“Annie was just ready to get in there and start working and really broke ground on it,” said Allison Shust, Fetch Collective’s PR manager. “I really don’t think that the magazine would’ve been promoted as much, or honestly done so well, without Annie’s hard work.”
Annie was responsible for planning graphics and social media content, as well as promoting the magazine through various people and platforms while overseeing the team’s individual tasks, said Shust, a junior studying public relations. The social team would meet every Friday at Bird Library where they would be met by Annie.
“Annie would just be sitting there with a smile ready to go,” Shust said. “Whatever Sophie needed done, Annie was getting ready to or had already done it.”
Shust said she didn’t know Annie was sick at the time, and that she would never have known because of her involvement on campus.
Lynch said that she could always rely on Annie for support, new ideas and ways to improve the organization.
“She was a huge support system for me and the rest of the executive team. Annie lit up any room that she walked in with her beautiful smile and gracious spirit,” Lynch said. “I’m honored to have worked with her.”
Along with her involvement in campus organizations, Annie held two swab drives for Gift of Life — a national blood stem cell and bone marrow registry that facilitates transplants for people with life-threatening blood cancer — at the Schine Student Center.
Annie received two bone marrow transplants during her treatment, Jodi Eisner said, which she received from her sister and an anonymous umbilical cord stem cell donor. Before coming to SU, Annie was trained as a Gift of Life ambassador and was very proud of her work, Jodi Eisner said.
The Eisner family hopes to continue Annie’s Gift of Life mission as an ongoing project in Syracuse, with a goal of swabbing at least 4,400 people in the city.
Andrew Eisner said that he made a discovery about a connection between SU’s most famous football player, Ernie Davis, and his daughter: the number 44.
“You cannot walk around Syracuse and not bump into somebody wearing a 44 jersey. It’s impossible, and Annie was in this battle for 44 months,” Andrew Eisner said.
Davis died in 1963 at age 23 after a 13-month battle with acute monocytic leukemia, another form of blood cancer. Andrew Eisner also pointed to Dwayne ‘Pearl’ Washington, a legendary SU basketball player from the mid-1980s, who died in 2016 from brain cancer.
“It’s not like there haven’t been major losses up in Syracuse,” Andrew Eisner said. “It’s just uncanny how those two numbers match up.”
Following the memorial service in Hendrick’s Chapel on Sept. 5, Gift of Life ambassadors swabbed 91 people to obtain tissue samples. The samples were used to determine individuals’ human leukocyte antigens to find matches through the registry.
To help the family meet the goal of 4,400 swabs, many organizations on campus, including Syracuse Hillel and Sigma Delta Tau, plan to hold Gift of Life swab drives for members of the SU community.
Campus Rabbi Ethan Bair announced at the service that Syracuse Hillel has already begun planning a Pink Shabbat, sponsored by Alpha Epsilon Phi and Sigma Delta Tau, to raise awareness and funds for cancer research during Annie’s birthday month, October, or “Annietober.”
Annietober, Andrew Eisner said, began when Annie was very little and decided to turn her October birthday into a month-long celebration.
“Everybody knows about ‘Annietober,’ down to the fact that it became the theme of her bat mitzvah,” Jodi Eisner said.
Annie would find creative ways to celebrate her birthday for the full month, planning various elaborate themed parties, Jodi Eisner said.
Dublin said that Annietober demonstrated Annie’s happy, bubbly personality. She was a person who just wanted to keep celebrating.
Izversky said the impact of Annie’s passions affected those around her. Izversky also was involved with advocating for Cycle for Survival in high school for Annie and continues to advocate for it and Gift of Life at SU.
“I’m inspired to continue her mission and help kids and others who were in her situation because it is horrible. No one should have to end their life so early,” Izversky said. “I just want to do what Annie would have continued doing had she still been here.”
As of Wednesday evening, the Eisner family has raised over $132,000 for Cycle for Survival through a fundraiser in Annie’s memory.
“I think she wanted to be remembered as a person, not as being sick, you know, as a caring kind person who was a good friend who liked to have fun,” Jodi Eisner said.
Shust said she was constantly inspired by her and her positive attitude, despite not having much interaction outside of Fetch Collective.
“I think she would just want us all to love each other a little harder the way she did. She brought such amazing light and energy,” Shust said. “Even though we weren’t that close, I was touched by her, she touched everyone around her no matter what she was going through or what she was doing.”
Izversky said that throughout their friendship, Annie remained consistently compassionate, kind and open-hearted even through the transition from childhood to college. She said the transition can strain relationships, but Annie was always loyal and kind.
“She would want me to probably say that she wants to be rich and famous,” Izversky said. “But she was just an amazing person and I think she would want to be remembered as someone who was strong and kind.”
