Toni Anderson remembered as intense, cheerful woman at memorial

Considering the 54-day public ordeal she had just endured, wondering whether her missing daughter was still alive, Liz Anderson could have been forgiven had she shut the doors to strangers and the media at Toni Anderson’s life celebration in Wichita on Tuesday.

Instead, she helped organize an upbeat service in which she and her daughter’s family and friends closed out her daughter’s story with prayers, a balloon launch and remembrances.

They spoke of an intense and cheerful woman-child who lived as an old soul in a life span of only 20 years. And Liz Anderson welcomed all comers at the front of Risen Savior Lutheran Church, even hugging a reporter, then fixing his misshapen shirt collar.

“So many people got caught up in the story, I wanted to do this celebration for them,” she said.

“I want them to know about how we are celebrating her.”

Family and friends showed photos of a child, and then a woman, born with a relentlessly cheerful face, with wide-set eyes framed by a long shock of blonde hair.

They told how she could talk endlessly about music, musicians and politics and how she wanted to earn a degree in political science.

It was love at first sight when he first met her two years ago, said Pete Sanchez, Toni’s boyfriend. She was so beautiful, he said, that he spent weeks mistakenly thinking – even as Toni hovered near him – about how she was way out of his league.

“We were going to take over the world,” he told hundreds of her friends in church. “And we wanted nothing more than to see each other every day.”

Tuesday’s life celebration came after an ordeal in which Toni, a college student from Wichita, went missing for 54 days after disappearing early on Jan. 15 after work in Kansas City, Mo. She was a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

In the weeks that followed, Liz Anderson wondered whether Toni had been kidnapped by human traffickers. People moved by her story, including strangers, took to social media with photos and images of hand-written signs saying “Bring Toni Home.”

Searchers found her body on March 10 in her car submerged in the Missouri River near Parkville, Mo. Police later ruled her death an accident.

Police and family think Toni became confused in the early morning and ended up at the boat ramp in the park.

Friends on Tuesday told how many of the family or community events she attended became events solely because she showed up. “Toni’s here!”

They told of late-night gatherings where Toni helped carve 40 pumpkins for Halloween. They told of how she saw the good in others, how she talked politics nonstop in a way that never disrespected views contrary to hers.

Sanchez told how he and Toni texted and talked about music she loved and how he wrote songs for her while she sat by his side and blogged relentlessly about music.

Close friend Roxanne Townsend told of how, after Toni’s disappearance, she met Toni in a dream.

“Sorry I’m late,” Toni told her in the dream.

“Where have you been?” Townsend asked.

“I’ve been at home,” Toni replied.

And now she’s truly at home, Townsend told Toni’s family and friends.

“And I hope Toni visits you all in your dreams, too.”

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Toni Anderson remembered as intense, cheerful woman at memorial."