Those 70ish Girls

BLESSED WITH THIRTEEN by Valerie Halla

Being an only lonely child growing up, I was in kid mode heaven when I slowly realized I had 12 cousins on my Mom’s side. We would visit South Dakota in the 1950’s and 1960’s driving for days from Pennsylvania where we lived and my whole world opened up like a combo- Disneyland with friends welded onto a “toy store” of family members my age, all in one, with love, fun and life showering down on me. It was magical. It was life changing. It was grand. Cousins were a life saver.

I used to want to play nonstop outdoors with kids in my suburban neighborhood growing up in Pennsylvania, but they often got called home or went inside to play with their brothers and sisters. I was alone with all this juvenile energy and a huge imagination, but there weren’t always other kids around. It got lonely.

Until I met 12 amazing humans as a kid on one trip to South Dakota during a family reunion in Murdo who I happily discovered were my cousins.

Terry is the oldest of the 13 cousins and my first impression of him as a kid about 10 years younger than him was how tall he was. He grew up in Murdo as an only child. He liked fishing, hunting and playing sports. As a young adult, he had one of the first Volkswagen bugs we had ever seen in smalltown Murdo. We all stared at the car since all we had ever seen were Fords, Chevys and GM cars. After getting his college education, he became a banker.He married a wonderful woman and went on to have four sons and lots of grandkids. He lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The next oldest cousin is Bill. I didn’t get to know Bill too well until he was tasked with taking me to the movies one warm summer night when we were visiting South Dakota, as my Mom visited with her parents and brothers and sisters. Bill paid for us, got popcorn and snacks and we started to watch an old King Kong movie at the little movie theater. I only saw part of King Kong. I was terrified looking up at the big screen as the eye of King Kong looked through a window of a building. Hey, it was just a scene in the movie but it reached out from the screen and shook me up. I was about 8 years old and I hadn’t seen any scary movies ever. I started crying and Bill tried to calm me down to no avail. I was interrupting everyone in the small town Murdo Theater. Bill somehow got me outside and someone called my Mom and Aunt Loretta who came and got me. Bill was happy to get rid of me and went back to watch the rest of the movie. I didn’t realize it until later that Bill was one of my closest friends when I was a toddler even though we both were too young at the time. He would be dropped at our apartment above Sanderson’s store where Grandma and Grandpa lived across the hall and they were supposed to babysit him, however Grampa would be napping. My Dad had to entertain Bill. Bill was a fun “big brother” type cousin and good with engaging people and telling stories. He lives in Los Angeles and has two children.

Jeff H comes next. He’s the oldest of Uncle Jeff and Aunt Irma’s two children. We called him Jeff H to distinguish him from his dad. Jeff H and I didn’t get to know one another at all since he seemed to be working on highway construction during summers or at his family store or playing sports. My parents thought he was a cute little boy when they were living in Murdo after the war. They even babysat sometimes. He said things they thought were funny when he was just a little toddler like calling deer “dur” and saying someone got “drosted” meaning hit with rocks and dirt. Jeff as a young adult took me to a dance in Draper once with another highway worker and the two guys pretty much ignored me. I don’t think I got asked to dance once. The big excitement was when a fistfight started out front. Jeff went into banking for many years and loves fishing. Jeff has one daughter and lives in Minnesota.

Bobby and his brother and two sisters didn’t live in South Dakota but were born in Michigan since their father got a job with a division of GM there many years ago. When Bobby and his brother and sisters came for summer visits to Murdo often, we would just see each other off and on. He would go fishing a lot with Grandpa and the guy cousins and I would stay to play with other cousins or take care of a litter of kittens that popped up in the neighborhood. Bobby would hang out with the men cousins and uncles and Grandpa.

We cousins would act out skits or sing songs like Purple People Eater or Yellow Polka Dot Bikini to perform under Grandma and Grandpa’s trees in their yard where it was cool. The younger neighborhood kids and cousins would be our audience. I really only got to know Bobby when we were preteens and everyone in Murdo thought he was so cute. He could have charmed the girls easily with his good looks and personality. Also in later years we would meet at family reunions. He has volumes of information and archival materials on our family tree. He’s written loads of papers on our family history and done research interviewing relatives and friends of our families. He’s good at genealogy. Bobby is an accomplished highly intelligent human being and worked at Buick for decades. He’s our family historian. He is also kind, caring and generous. Bobby has three sons. He lives in South Dakota.

Blake is Bobby’s younger brother and they don’t look alike but they’re close in age. Blake had rheumatic fever when he was a kid, I think. Our mothers wrote letters back and forth when the families were young and I remember my Mom being worried about her sister’s son, Blake. I didn’t know Blake very well either until he was married and bought a house in California. He invited my parents and I over to their big house and Aunt Loretta and Gus also. I went once when my kids were little. Everyone got dressed up because to my parents, it was a big deal going to Blake and Melanie’s. Another big deal was when Blake and Melanie bought an old building in Deadwood and after years of renovation opened it as an historic hotel with a ballroom on the top floor. It’s a quaint boutique hotel and walking inside, you’re taken back to the 1860’s or thereabouts. Blake has a lovely wife and three adult children. He has some funny stories about Grandpa Sanderson, as we all do. Blake lives in Deadwood, SD and sometimes in Michigan.

Cousin Andrea is six months older than me and you cannot find a more honest, trustworthy, beautiful lady. When we were toddlers together in Murdo, the local hairdresser nicknamed her “bug eyes” because she has large brown eyes that stare unflinchingly at you and I was nicknamed “pickle puss” since I loved sour dill pickles from Sanderson’s Store. We partly grew up together and when my family had left South Dakota for my Dad’s home state of Pennsylvania for about ten years and moved back to South Dakota, Andrea and I were in 7th and 8th grade together. What a pair. I copied everything she wore, how she talked, walked, and terms she used. She always said she tried to be different and I was totally following her by NOT being different at all. Andrea went on to become a popular student and was Homecoming Queen . She was close to her family and loved going skiing with them out on local dams after her Dad bought a boat. She had organized the cousins to sing carols at the annual Christmas get together one time which was a lovely tradition. The Murdo families all got together to open gifts and eat delicious food at a potluck. The aunts and uncles took turns having the celebration at each others home. Later in life, Andrea helped with her younger brother, Greg, to build a motel in town and a doll museum. She’s a successful businesswoman and a strong woman both in her community in Pierre, and in her beloved state of South Dakota. She has two sons and one stepdaughter and lots of grandchildren . She lives in Pierre.

PART 2

Next, we have yours truly. I am Valerie, in the seventh position among the 13 cousins. I’m honored and in awe of being in the Sanderson Cousin Clan of 13. I am a baby boomer, born in Pierre, South Dakota and raised in Murdo and the suburbs of Pennsylvania then back again briefly to SD then to California for high school. The surfer craze was on then, and the turbulent ‘60’s had started. I went to college and got my teaching credential. I taught for 34 years and now I’m enjoying retirement life having a good time. I have 3 children and live in California.

Mark comes next as younger brother to Jeff H. He grew up in Murdo and played in the high school band. His parents were well known and active in the community. Mark had the best yard for kids. He had a hut playhouse, a treehouse, a big stock tank to swim in, a barrel hanging up to ride and Uncle Jeff made rubber band type play guns for us. Mark grew up involved in school with perfect attendance. He went off to college and studied business. He traveled around a bit, then bought a place out in the country and got busy remodeling and rebuilding a partially constructed house there. He and I biked out there decades ago and looked it over. I kept feeling like he was planning on something big. It was a mystery to me. He was being secretive. He was planning a life changing adventure. He built a motel out in the country. Many years later now he lives there part of the year after also having a successful business in California which he eventually sold. Mark enjoys managing and maintaining his Country Inn with its beautiful prairie setting, indoor pool, and many unique rooms he rents out to travelers, many of whom return year after year to stay at his motel. Mark lives in California and South Dakota.

Mary is just a few weeks younger than Cousin Mark. She’s the younger sister of Bill. I remember first seeing her, a darling little girl with her dark hair in curly ringlets, bouncing along on her pony Governor. I didn’t know if the curls were bouncing more or the pony. As she grew up we all learned how cute she was and strong willed, talented and imaginative. We tried playing Rawhide together when we were about 10 and 12, she on her horse and me borrowing Mark’s horse, Prince. We were trying to herd dairy cattle one warm summer day. We lazily settled out in a pasture, not a care in the world, not only were we trespassing but we were running another man’s cows without permission. That already meant trouble. Mary and I in our youthful wisdom decided she would ride back to town to get us food and water. I would stay with the saddle which I had removed from Prince as the horse munched grass. I would faithfully wait for Mary to return and I waited, and waited , and waited. Mary didn’t return and I was getting thirsty plus I wondered if rattle snakes were out there on the prairie with me just lying around in the grass. Duh. She never returned because she got distracted and decided to play with other kids and forgot about me, until my mom drove around looking for me and ran into Mary. Luckily my dear mom found me after Mary gave her directions. After that I wasn’t ready to play Rawhide again no matter what Mary said. Lucky for us we didn’t get in trouble with the law, Rawhide or no Rawhide. Mary was a true Murdo Girl and later wrote her own blog with fantastic stories of growing up in a small town with lots of relatives around to keep you honest. Mary lives in Texas and doesn’t own any horses nor cows. She has four kids.

Stephanie was the younger sister of Andrea. She was a beautiful little blue eyed girl who grew up in Murdo. She had a talent for organizing people and bringing them together. She broke her tailbone as a cheerleader in high school and worked hard to organize a large pep rally to cheer on the team. She met her husband in college and he became a doctor and she worked as an EMT. They had three girls. Stephanie worked for Governor Janklow. She also helped her community financing Dolly Parton’s movement and getting free books to children from birth to age 5. There is a Stephanie Miller-Davis Day held in Murdo in her honor for all she’s done for the library and community. She and her sister, Andrea, organized several Sanderson Family Reunions in the Black Hills which were fun, well done and a chance for our families to come together from far and wide. Stephanie was liked by all who met her.

Suanne is the younger sister of Bob and Blake. We cousins who didn’t know one another rarely met up since she lived in Michigan most of her life until she and husband Ray decided to sell their house in Michigan and move out to the Black Hills where she helped her brother for a while. Later she helped other businesses in Deadwood. Suanne took care of her mother for many years. She’s a caring, intelligent and family person. She and husband Ray have settled into life in the Hills ambitiously building two houses. In retirement she is active with the Animal Shelter in Deadwood. She has always loved horses so they have acreage for horses and their umpteen dogs. She lives in a lovely area outside Spearfish.

Cousin Greg is 5 months younger than Suanne. He was born on June 26, 1955. The first time I met Greg, who is six years younger than me, he was hiding behind an easy chair in the living room of Aunt Elna and Uncle Jerry’s cozy house. He was tiny and thin with big eyes like his sister Andrea’s, and he didn’t say anything to the group of strange relatives descended upon him all giggling and talking at this little toddler. It was our first introduction to Greg since we lived in Pennsylvania and visited South Dakota every two years.After we all had given up coaxing him out from behind the easy chair, out of the blue we hear, “Gum, gum?” He finally talked. So his Mom- my dear Aunt Elna – gave him a tiny bit from a stick of gum. That broke the ice. He was shy but could be bribed. I’m not sure if he’s like that today but I do know he was a musician, a skilled carpenter, and a successful businessman and father and grandfather, on and on. I didn’t get to know him real well. He’s always there when we visit. He’s usually so busy with Range Country Motel that we don’t get to chat. I need to take care of that. I need to get to know Greg better. He has three grown kids and multiple grandkids. He lives in Murdo, a solid member of that community.

Last and not least of all we have the “baby” of the 13 Sanderson cousins, Patrice, who goes by Trice. She’s the youngest in her family of four kids also. She had a gorgeous wedding at her folks’ home years ago, at least it looked romantic from the pictures. She has three talented adult children and lives in Illinois. When she was a little kid on a regular visit to South Dakota with her family, somehow Trice and her sister, Suanne, were riding in the backseat with Grandpa Sanderson. He had his fishing rods and tackle box on the front seat. I guess they were going fishing together. Grandpa in his later years would talk away nonstop telling stories and pointing out certain places on the ride, all the while turning to look in back at the two grandchildren who were starting to look concerned, if not frightened. He would drive down dirt roads taking his big old car up the sides, into ruts and holes in the country road and then down into ditches at top speed. The girls were holding on for dear life in the back seat and wondering what they had gotten into. After a long ride finally getting back to where their folks were with all the other relatives, my Mom, their Aunt Ella, said, “You didn’t ride in the back seat with Grandpa- did you?”

The girls replied that they had. They were still pretty pale and shocked.

My Mom said, “Don’t ever ride in back with Grandpa, it’s dangerous because he constantly turns around to give you a long running monologue!”

Trice and Suanne replied together, “Now you tell us!”

*Those are write ups on my 12 cousins each of whom I am proud to say are related to me. How can I be so lucky?

If I’ve made errors, please let me know. I tried to recall my memories of all 12 cousins and being 70ish, some recollections are hazy and blurred. Plus being a Sanderson, I have embellished and skewed lots of facts. Forgive me.

I am truly blessed to have these cousins in my lifetime.

What a great group that I’m happy to call my cousins.