We hear it all the time currently, “Happy New Year!” Really?

What if I am not ready? Can I just ignore January 1st? Can I let it go by? Would it hurt to still write 2022 on forms, checks, letters, in journals or diaries? Would it feel any different to not recognize the new year? People might correct me or say I am wacko, crazy and out of touch. That’d be all right. If I ignore this new year, dare I say it: 2023… will it still come, sneak up on me? I do not want it. No thank you. Will it still happen?

The answer is YES. But you knew that. Poets and writers and scholars and scientists and historians have known it. Everyone knows. “Time waits for no man.” Heck, I am still eating Christmas leftovers. There are stains on the table cloth from prime rib. The poinsettia is still vibrant. Tree is up! Some people leave their CHRISTMAS TREES up for months after it’s over. Maybe they think that will ward off the New Year. HA! Nope, no, uh uh.

Then there’s New Year’s Eve. Gosh almighty and darn it. I’m not going to any parties nor celebrations. I’m not drinking any alcohol. Nor am I eating special appetizers. Just leave me alone in my easy chair and I will get through it. I’m going to bed around 10:00 pm like usual, even though the loud fireworks and neighbors will probably wake me around midnight. It’s just another night. Go away.

What’s so new about New Years? They always show some baby in drawings symbolizing a new year next to an old man as the old year. I can identify because I feel pretty old as well. But did that guy get that old in just one year? Is it all a joke?

So have a good time and enjoy the page turning in our book to a New Fresh Baby Year. I’m going to be here in my easy chair…complaining. It’ll just be another day, another year, another baby popping up, happy or not.

CHRISTMAS PREP AND PLANS

Here at our house we have been working on special traditions in cooking and planning, not to mention cleaning and decorating.

My husband preps his fillings for Pierogi for days, cooking potatoes, sautéed onions and grating cheese. He makes a mashed potato filling and stores it in containers. He also fries bacon and chops the crisp bacon finely to add later. Another day he makes a sauerkraut with chopped sautéed mushrooms and onions filling. Then on another day he makes a sticky dough, kneads it and rolls it out. He cuts out circular pieces and puts a small amount of filling on each piece and folds it over, sealing the edges with a fork pressed around the edges. They will be boiled and served hot on Christmas Eve night with sour cream at our big dinner along with prime rib, potato cream cheese casserole, veggies, salad and homemade apple pie for dessert.

I love sending and receiving cards over the holidays. I mailed 60 photo cards this year of our family pose taken on Thanksgiving. Many people sent cards back. We received an interesting one yesterday from Cousin JEFF H. The letter was a holiday quiz with descriptions about each person in his and his wife’s family with a letter given next to each. Then blanks were typed where you could match descriptions with names. A tiny paper was enclosed separately with the answers! Clever and unique idea. Most people sent cards with short messages about how they were doing. I save the cards for sharing with my kids or just rereading later to make me feel the happiness again.

We did not decorate much at all. Getting lazy in old age. Just put out a few poinsettias and little tree. Our two sons arrive today so I make beef stew and cornbread which has been a tradition since they were kids. A few gifts will be passed out this weekend. One fun tradition is seeing the two dogs rip open their gifts! They each get a toy and a special treat. Funny seeing them go at it. So we will enjoy chatting, a movie maybe and some walks downtown, but the joy of the holidays will surround us and being with family is the best part. Happy holidays from our house to yours.

Baba’s riveting Christmas cooking video makes news!!! She discloses that she has a fatal flaw. You heard it here first, folks!!! She is Con-de-sending, which in layman’s terms means she cons de people into sending her recipes. YeaH!

Following her cooking segment, Baba invites us to take a short walk with her while she tries to snag a short interview. I’m happy to say the interviews are short…er the interviewees are short. Or maybe they are short with her. IDK

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As we have thought back over our lives, growing up with these aunts and uncles as our role models, our guide, our family, we wanted to share some memories of them. These write-ups have been a tribute to the six SANDERSONS all born during the early 1900’s – 1926. They lived through WWI, the Great Depression and the Dirty Thirties plus WWII. Talking it over, Cousin Mary said to me when she had the idea, “Their lives stuck in our minds. They dropped little jewels and stories. We learned from what they lived.” She wanted me to just write about them from my point of view. It would be a series, a story of growing up and learning from them. Maybe you have known some of them or had family members like them. They were pillars in their community. They were our family foundations. They came from strong, solid stock.

Uncle Wayne had a black dog named Smokey who chased cars and later a black dog named McGee. He worked hard all his life and enjoyed his farm on White River later in life, calling it Green Acres. He liked dancing also and attended several dances in his later years. I didn’t know until many years later, after he had passed away, that he and one of the family’s neighbors,Gene Thomas, were great friends. Uncle Wayne talked baseball with Gene who didn’t quite understand it all.

My mother, Ella, was the second born arriving on December 12, 1914, although Grandpa SANDERSON got the date wrong and she always had trouble with her birth certificate for some reason. The day she was born, the doctor came out to their rented farm with a team and sleigh riding up over fences on deep snowdrifts. There seem to be many more baby photos of the two first born than the other four which most new parents usually do. She was named after her parent’s mothers- Ella Elizabeth. She is a part of me now and always.

Melvin Eugene came next in 1916. He had his father’s same initials, but a nickname stuck and he was Jeff for life. He and his wife, our Aunt Irma, volunteered to help their community of Murdo unselfishly on countless projects and in many ways. Too many to list. They gave back in volumes.

Aunt Helen was born next and always loved life to its fullest seeing the glass half full. She loved children, having four of her own, the most of the six SANDERSONS. (When we got together for reunions, we other cousins thought Bobby and Blake were cute and world wise. They were cool.) I still have some of her recipes as she was a good cook. She always looked slim, trim and neatly dressed and coiffed. She was a selfless giving person.

Aunt Loretta came next and thinking that she would be their last born, Grandpa called her Babe. She could be fiery hot with a temper, or quietly contemplative at times. She intrigued me yet scared me. I had never known anyone like her. She was probably one of the first successful and unique business women in Murdo. Stories about her abound within our family. She kept cash in her refrigerator lettuce drawer, she kept family and cousins working at her motel, she called people with one line of gossip then hung up…”So and so is pregnant.” Boom.

Aunt Elna was born in 1926, last and certainly not least. The family came back from a trip to Iowa when Elna was small. Her parents gave her a gift when they got home. She opened the box and inside was a puppy. She got scared and cried. That gift didn’t work out. As she grew up in Murdo. Elna enjoyed driving uptown checking out the motels or going out for coffee. She would go into places just whistling a tune or humming a sweet song. Even into her later years, she worked, helping at the Range Country. She was a joy to know.

They aren’t gone. The SANDERSON cousins, 12 of us, and dear Stephanie in heaven, have them living with us, the good memories and some bad ones maybe, living inside our minds, our hearts, however, some memories slowly fading as we grow old, still a part of us. We come from good stock.

Below is a slideshow of some old family photos…

The last child born on October 17, 1926 to ME and Mary SANDERSON was Elna Jeanette in Murdo, SD. She spent her early years on Horse Creek. She was talented from the start where she was drawn to studying music in school in Murdo.

She also clerked in the family general store selling dry goods and even shoes. Everyone in the family had to work. All six children were expected to help out. In old photos of the family, Elna is obviously much younger than the other kids seen wearing her plaid school girl outfit flashing her lovely smile. Her older sisters carried her around as a baby and toddler. My Mom remembers little Elna seeing her mother baking a cake and declaring, “Not nut cake but coconut cake.” The older kids cheered her on for speaking clearly as a toddler.

On September 29, 1945 – the same year my Mother, Ella, got married – Elna married Gerald R. Miller of Draper, SD. They lived in Bell Gardens, California for a year before moving back to Jones County in 1947. Two daughters, Andrea and Stephanie and one son, Greg, were blessed with a devoted mother. Andrea was born the same year I was. My Mom gave me a short version of Elna’s middle name Jeanette- my middle name being Jean. Elna was a natural Mom and housekeeper. I remember the orange nasturtiums she grew out front of the darling house in Murdo. She loved her family and neighbors. She helped with many church events and family gatherings.

My memories of Aunt Elna are deeply intertwined with my Mom, her sister, because they were close and kept in touch often writing letters every day to their siblings. Aunt Elna’s letters were written in small cursive strokes and often she would write along the edges and tops so as to get in one more thought on paper or cards. My cousin, Bill, would be handed a letter from Elna as he sat visiting my folks in California sometimes. He had a tough time reading Aunt Elna’s small handwriting and as he struggled he would turn the letter around to read the edges. Frustrated, Bill would say, “I can read Aunt Elna’s letters except when she goes along the sides and writes up over the top, I’m through!”

I would stop by Aunt Elna and Uncle Jerry’s house during the two years we lived in Murdo and she was always at work washing floors on her hands and knees, or cleaning something or ironing . She was also a great cook and baker. Her house was always tidy. She would chat about local issues or people and ask what’s new from uptown. Sometimes I would get lucky and she would play the old upright piano with a modern popular song or oldies from WWII or a Broadway musical. She had a real ear for music and was a beautiful singer, too. She had even played with a band at Westover Hall as a young woman.

Aunt Elna loved being with family and especially liked going out for pie and coffee with her sister, Loretta, and taking Grandma SANDERSON along. They would talk and laugh and as a friend, Elsa Peck, told me, “Those SANDERSON girls would get together and talk and tell stories, then slap their knees erupting with loud laughter. They had the most fun.” Aunt Elna’s laugh was the best. If you heard her giggle then break into a full laugh, you’d want to join in. It was infectious.

Later on in life Elna liked helping at the family’s Range Country Lodging. She would help sweep sidewalks and polish windows. The staff there had to stop her one day trying to sweep outside as winds gusted to around 50 mph.

Elna was always dressed smartly and had her hair done in a manner that complimented her face and blue eyes. There’s a photo of her in a sleeveless white top worn with a pencil thin skirt. I remember thinking how cool she looked and young. She seemed to like wearing bright colors as I recall. I mentioned how she worked hard and kept her household running smoothly but she also knew how to relax and I can see her now, sitting calmly lounged in a chair with one arm resting up around the chair back or stretched on the couch telling we kids to please keep the noise down since she needed to rest.

We were all lucky to have Aunt Elna in our lives growing up. As a role model, you couldn’t ask for a stronger, more feminine, kinder example to follow. All the SANDERSON girls were beautiful but more than that, they made you feel important and even as a kid you were included. Elna spoke to me like I was one of the adults and I talked to her like a friend, not just my aunt. She joked around with us and we laughed a lot. How much we miss her, the last born of the SANDERSONS, but one of the best. Thanks for the music and laughter, Aunt Elna, but mostly thanks for being you.

Aunt Loretta often said, “Enough about me, how did you like my last movie?”

If someone ever made a movie about Aunt Loretta, it would be hilarious and emotionally take you up then drop you down pretty hard, but you would love every minute.

She talked to me like I was an adult, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, and we had traveled from PA to Murdo, SD to have a Sanderson reunion. I kept playing with the many cousins running wild through the small town and enjoying meeting all my relatives. I would ask her if we were “allowed” to do this or that, constantly asking for adult permission, and she got a bit agitated at my persistence.
“Do you always have to ask if you’re ‘allowed’ to do anything?” she asked sternly.

That shut me up for a while. Two weeks later, when we got home to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, I asked my Mom about all the aunts’ and uncles’ names and tried to get their kids connected with the right relative. When it came to discussing Aunt Loretta, I blurted out, “Ohhh, the mean one!”
My 8 year old self was wrong. Loretta was just honest and treated you like an adult, something which I was not used to at all. She made you own up.
Another time she told me that being an only child was different. She said my parents had to pour all their hopes, dreams and work of parenting into just one kid. They had to give me all their love and attention. Not necessarily spoiling me, because they were careful about that and we didn’t have much money, but just giving the one child 100%.
One sizzling hot summer day in  Murdo, she was lying in bed with just a 1950’s style bra on and shorts looking through movie magazines. As kids do, some of us piled in to look at the movie star’s photos with her and she said something about her next movie coming out. She also said her next husband would be sweet and kind. As a kid, I had never seen my Mom, first of all, lying in bed in the middle of the day in her bra and secondly talking about movie stars and movies while lounging in bed. And getting married again. What? This was fascinating and daring stuff.
Loretta gave cousin Andrea and me our first paid jobs while in junior high,  cleaning her motel rooms during the summer. She was particular about how the rooms were cleaned and trained us exactly in what she wanted done each morning. Then later, she took us to Mack’s Cafe for homemade giant cinnamon rolls as a reward for working. I think Andrea and I liked those rolls better than the cash we got working.
I hold many wonderful memories about her in my heart and psyche. Too many to share.
~The time she wore her red satin petticoat over her dress at a fashion show party to show off, her delicious lemon bars and cooking, her fake yelling at you finger pointing and saying, “Just wait. Grandpa will have to deal with your  behavior!”  Leaving a dirty diaper under her roommate’s pillow after her sweet roommate complained about dirty cloth diapers being left around their shared wartime apartment just to get back at her. On and on…
All we cousins loved her and her straightforward ways. She was a character and a true standout.
Darn, wish I had some of those cinnamon rolls right now. Thanks, Aunt Loretta.

When I was a little girl, we visited Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob and their four kids in Michigan just once. We only saw them once in a while because we lived in Pennsylvania pretty far from their house, and had only been to Murdo, South Dakota for a few SANDERSON family reunions together during the summer. But after seeing Aunt Helen a few times and noticing how pretty she was, I decided to name my new dark haired doll Helen in her honor. To me that was the perfect name.

Aunt Helen was the fourth child born to Grandma and Grandpa SANDERSON and the last to be born before the family moved to a little log cabin on Horse Creek about 7 miles outside of Murdo. Her brother Jeff’s birth had been difficult so her dad, my Grandpa, drove his wife a very long distance in a wagon/carriage to Mitchell Hospital when the time came. Helen was named Mary Helen but was called Helen so as not to be confused having her mother’s first name.

It was a tough life on the farm there. Even though the family had a Model A, Grandpa later bought a Model T which made the two miles on dirt roads then the 5 miles on gravel roads easier. Aunt Helen later wrote that she was always happy growing up even in tough times. She dressed the farm kittens like her babies and loved playing house, even though she had chores and worked hard as did the entire family. The kids road a horse three miles to school and did not like leaving their horse all day in the barn at school with no food. There were 12 students in the country school in eight grades.

The Osborn family also attended school with the SANDERSONS and only had bread with cocoa junk on their bread sandwiches. That was a mixture of sugar, cocoa and whole milk which would soak into the homemade bread. The Osborn family was poor. They had 13 children. Helen felt lucky to have sardine sandwiches at school for lunch. A tin of sardines cost 4 cents and she recalled that some were canned in mustard or tomato sauce and were tasty.

Helen recalls that her Dad, ME SANDERSON was strict. If their Mom, Mary, couldn’t handle the kids, she would say in a low voice, “I will have to tell your Dad.” One time ME put her on top of a tall cupboard to discipline Helen. Or to show the other kids who was boss.

Helen was a dark haired, slim girl in high school. Later she went to business school out in Rapid City after my Mom, Ella, gave her the money to attend. She eventually met her future husband Bob who graduated from School of Mines and he got a job in Michigan with the auto manufacturer, Chevrolet. They left the day after getting married and drove with another couple all the way to Michigan from South Dakota. They raised their four children there in Michigan. One summer my parents bought a car from Bob and Helen. The two families met in Murdo so my parents could drive it home later. They were so proud to have gotten a relatively new car from Bob and Helen.

Later in life, when Bob had passed away, Helen went to live near a daughter in South Dakota once again. She regularly wrote beautiful letters to her brothers and sisters with a neat flowing cursive handwriting. I remember my mother read those letters over and over and kept many of them. Aunt Helen was always happy as long as the sun shone. And she was always beautiful inside and out.

Baba baked some bread since she couldn’t find any in her kitchen. She decided the Pilgrims had the right idea, sitting down with their new friends, the Wampanoag Tribe in the New World and shared food, conversation and thankfulness.

May you all enjoy time with others during this holiday and celebrate your blessings no matter how small by giving thanks and sharing what you have. If you have little or nothing at all to share, then try sharing kindness – it’s free and gives back so much in return.

Baba snagged a TeeVee gig. She convinced the producers that she had cooking expertise. Her TeeVee show has yet to air because most of it ended up on the cutting room floor. I don’t know what that means, but I’ve heard lots of bigshot TeeVee execs say that…Tiny (This is not Yram.)

Yram has to copy everything I do. She does not have cuuking expertise. I’ve been working hard with my producer, Bozo, and he thinks I’m just a few Thanksgivings away from being the next Julie Child. (Only I don’t talk funny.) This is Baba…TaTa, Wyram.

Happy Thanksgiving from Baba and Yram…If you want our recipes you can call Baba at 999-999-9999 or Yram at 555-555-5555.

WE ARE VERY THANKFULL FOR YOU!

Uncle Jeff was born a couple years after my Mom. The doctor had to break his arm delivering him breach since he was a chubby big baby. He was named Melvin but as I wrote earlier, his nickname of JEFF stuck.

He was a lover of family, his town, his country and sports, as well as fishing and hunting. He joined the Marines as a young man shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked. His mother, my Grandma Mary, who rarely left her home in Murdo, SD, made the trip to California to see her Jeff. She traveled alone by train and was hoping to get there before Jeff was shipped out. Her daughters, Ella and Loretta, met her at the train station and had to break the news that Jeff and already left. Her daughters said that Grandma wouldn’t look at the ocean the whole time she was in California because it took her Jeff away.

Jeff worked up to being a Staff Sergeant, and the only one in his family who served in WWII. Any time we visited my Mom’s home town, he was there to help us find a place to stay, and take us to lunch or to come visit and chat for hours. We were eating at the Star Cafe with him one summer visit. We all sat talking and when our food came, he asked if anyone wanted some of his French fries because he had about “a thousand fries” and couldn’t eat them all. He loved to kid around and have fun. He hung out with his brother, Wayne, since they were always good friends as well as good brothers. Jeff was the one who, as a young boy, unknowingly walked past the rattler first  before the snake struck out at Wayne.

Everyone liked JEFF who owned SANDERSONS General Store for years and later worked for the rural utility company. He voluntarily managed Murdo’s youth baseball program for 12 years. He was man of the year in South Dakota one year as a senior. Quite an honor. And I cannot forget about his jeep that he used to haul hundreds of kids to different baseball games. The old Willis Jeep was towed out to the cemetery during his funeral procession. He loved his old jeep which now sits at Murdo Auto Museum. He would like that.

As I said before, Uncle Jeff was dedicated to family and community. He lived next door to Grandma and Grandpa and More often than not, he spent his noon hour visiting with them in their home.