Career
After training as a nurse, she worked at both the Ullevål Hospital in Oslo and at the Dikemark, a psychiatric hospital in Asker. By the age of 27, she had joined the Norwegian Missionary Association (Det Norske Misjonsforbund). On 23 December 1938 Annie arrived in Shaanxi, a province in northern China.
She remained in the country until the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1950.
At 190 cm, she was often the tallest woman the Chinese locals had ever seen before. From 1952 she coordinated relief work among Chinese refugees in Hong Kong.
In 1953 she helped co-found a tuberculosis sanatorium with Helen Wilson, a missionary from Scotland. In 2013 the Haven of Hope Hospital celebrated its 60th anniversary providing services specially designed for elderly people with chronic illness living in the community.
Sister Annie became a national hero in Norway when her life as a missionary was told on the Norwegian program "This is Your Life" ("Dette er ditt liv").
In 1963 she was appointed as a First Class Knight of Saint Olav. Her brother Bjørn Skau, was a former Norwegian Attorney General.