Call me crazy. At least I fit into this crazy world.
I think our SANDERSON family, meaning Grandparents and their six children, went through harsh, difficult, stressful times on the prairie and experiencing small town prairie life in the first part of the 1900’s. They were lucky to have a Model T, a couple horses and a wagon. After my grandparents, M.E. and Mary, were married in Iowa they headed to South Dakota around 1911 crossing the Missouri River precariously with the help of ropes and river navigators willing and ready. I imagine that was a scary way to get across a major river.
They lived through the uncertain times of young newly wed life, having six children, the dirty 1930’s which were challenging in their times, and life on the farm with minimal farm equipment and no technology in sight. They knew the meaning of hard times, little money and harsh realities.The harsh life strangely brought out more goodness, kindness and resolve in their hearts, buried more love in their souls. It did cause depression to which my Mom, Ella and Aunt Elna attested. My Mom often told me that her Dad, M.E. Sanderson would get discouraged and later maybe in his mid-thirties would spend hours in a dark root cellar just to himself out on their Horse Creek farm. This was unusual for him because he had to constantly be working or caring for livestock and crops. The family knew this was not the normal behavior from the head of a household of eight individuals. Aunt Elna told someone once that they wouldn’t have all survived growing up if Uncle Wayne, the oldest of the six children, hadn’t stepped up and worked hard as a kid to get money from the sale of crows and skins from trapping animals some state agency paid him for since the animals were a hindrance to farmers. All the kids were put to work on the farms in those days.
I think all our heritage, our history, our past bloodline follows us in both small and large ways, weaving life into a fine fabric, its threads taken from this grandmother’s line or that grandfather’s or from an uncle or an ancient cousin from far away lands. We derive our strength from their strength with their bloodline trickling into ours. You might take after a particularly lovely relative with beautiful big hazel eyes from someone far back in your family tree, like someone you never knew.
You carry a million years of history in your DNA from humans who lived thousands of years ago, yet we often just say, “You take after your Mother with your dark hair and hazel eyes.” Perhaps we didn’t go back far enough in the family tree. We narrow down the years. Naturally there are a myriad of different traits and characteristics from our entire past.
Grandma and Grandpa Sanderson had traits that weren’t just physical. They showed their strength and resilience which came from deep within their souls and hearts. All these things were part of their personalities yet the harsh lives they endured played a part as well. Who they were was formed from what they had lived through, why they were so strong, and where they had lived. The prairie life can be brutal and forge what you are from tough times.
My cousin, Mary, often recalls how our SANDERSON grandparents never once yelled nor disciplined us as young children running around their house, yelling and screaming, eating their food or playing dress up with grandma’s clothes and hiding in their bedroom closet. They led by example and kindnesses. They showed us what to become as they had become.
Sure, I might be crazy saying all this. Harsh reality can either make us rise up to become our best version of ourselves or knock us down. Do we stay down? I would like to think that we stay the course and follow our grandparent’s example.
I am third from the left with Pam, my best friend, on my left, taken last Monday with high school friends and one gal who went to a different high school. We drank a toast to Pam’s momwho had recently passed away.
When I met Pam and her Mom in the early 1960’s, I was lost because I came from a small town in South Dakota and I was just starting my teen years. I was an only child and my new friend was an only child from North Dakota so we had things in common. We helped each other get through the years. We went to the beach often, talked about sharing clothes, found bikinis we liked and listened to the radio. Oh, and looked at boys. Rad.
Pam’s mother, Hope, helped us get through the teenage years as well. We met another newcomer, Sue, who lived in Pam’s lovely garden apartment building. Her father had recently died so she looked sad and alone. Her brother Patrick made friends with a young guy who played the drums with a small rock group. We got to talking and concocted an idea to have a dance in the apartment clubhouse where Pam and Sue lived asking Patrick to ask his friend’s band to play. Bitchen.
And who would fill out the forms and pay the fee to rent out the clubhouse? Pam’s mom of course, Hope. She stepped forward and helped us. We spread the word putting up posters and telling everyone about our planned dance after all the paperwork was in and the money paid for the clubhouse rental with our babysitting money. Was this really happening?Far out.
The night of the dance brought out many kids and couples with about 40 people attending. As naive 14 year olds we were shocked that our plan was a total success! We were entrepreneurs but didn’t know it. Groovy!
Our dance didn’t have bright lights.
The private dance party we arranged when we were 14 was awesome. Someone’s sister chaperoned it. Amazingly that was allowed. We even had a live band.
After a few years, we graduated high school had our boyfriends, I went to college and Pam went with a friend to live then work at Park City Utah at a ski resort. We got married, had kids, bought homes, exchanged Christmas cards, and got on with life, communicating rarely.
Fast forward to 2015 when I finally decided to visit Pam. I stayed at her house a couple nights and we reminisced and met up with another friend and her husband for dinner out and a ghost walk through San Juan Capistrano historic area. It was a blast. The years melted away. Unreal.
Last Monday I was down in LA with my two sons. We drove down from my house in Central California to celebrate my other son, Matt’s birthday with him. I also arranged to take the train to San Juan Capistrano to visit Pam because her 98 year old mother had just passed away. I wanted to tell her in person how much her mother had meant to me and we were going to dinner with three other high school friends we hadn’t seen very often.
This was the bizarre part…I had just gotten a letter from Pam’s mother three days after she had died. A caregiver had written it for 98 year old Hope and it was asking me to please console Pam since Hope knew she was going soon to “meet our Lord and savior”the letter said. It was written in graceful flowing cursive in blue ink.
I had to share this touching, soul warming letter with Pam. That was my plan.
I got this letter on November 10.My friend’s Mom passed away on November 5.
The letter starts out by thanking me.
The caregiver who knew Hope well, wrote this letter to me. I am truly honored.
Skip the details of riding the train, hugging my friend at the station, sharing memories of her mother and reconnecting. When I showed Pam the letter, she read very carefully and said, “This is just like the one I received. Yes, the caregiver wrote it for my dying Mom.”
I’m still crying each time I look at the envelope. It’s a relief that all has been done that can be and that Pam is dealing with it so gracefully. She had an incredible mother. She loved her a great deal.
My best friend, Pam, with me at her family’s garden apartment when we were about 14 years old in sunny Orange County, California. We had just met.
She was standing off to the side of the paved playground amidst the crowd of teenagers in seventh, eighth and ninth grades. She definitely stood out as a newcomer in her cutoff jeans and white neatly pressed blouse. She had just arrived from small change North Dakota like I had just moved from small town South Dakota. At some time we walked up to one another and told one another our names, our stories, our likes and dislikes and our classes. But knowing where she lived was the key.
My parents had rented the cheapest one bedroom apartment they could find in Anaheim, California after we moved from Murdo, South Dakota. I didn’t even have a bedroom and slept on a hard couch. So when Pam, a cute blonde and the new girl from North Dakota, invited me over to her place I was shocked at how beautiful and open her garden apartment was. It was located a few blocks from where I lived. They even had a serene park with a playground lush with healthy green grass, and a pool with an adjoining spacious clubhouse. To me it was like Beverly Hills versus the suburban ghetto where I lived.
I met Pam’s beautiful Mom who seemed to always look like she had washed her face ten times and had big eyes that played softly with the California sunshine looking about ten or fifteen years younger than my Mom. At other times when I went to visit Pam, her mother Hope was decked out in a tight fitting sheeth dress popular in the 1960’s. She wore heels and not much jewelry and her husband – Pam’s stepdad – was brusque, slim, also looked much younger than my Dad, and was in a suit ready to take Pam’s Mom out on “date” even though they were married. He was a salesman. Pam hated him and tried to stand up to him when he was gruff with her or made her Mom deny Pam money to buy clothes or shoes or just money for a movie or a coke with friends. He struck me as mean.
I have been her friend over many years and she stuck with me through some tough teenage tragedies and trials. We lost touch with one another for a long stretch of time what with having kids, moving different places and finding new friends. However, none were as close nor as kind as her. She and my cousin made their own dresses to help out at my hippy style wedding reception in 1971. Pam brought her newborn son and held him during the entire wedding reception. She was a new mother yet she was there for me. That showed me what a strong, caring young woman she was.
We reconnected again when sadness hit. Her son died from drug addiction in a jail cell. He was in his 40’s. He had been in prison and on meth most of his young life. She wrote me a letter about his problems. She also had a daughter named after her mother, Hope. Her daughter was an accomplished artist and went to college back east.
I went to visit Pam ten years ago and it was like we were young girls in our early 20’s, newly married and ready to grab life by the hand with our new handsome husbands. We connected again after having sent a few letters and Christmas cards over the years, We had gone on our separate ways, trying to figure it all out. She had gotten divorced and I had taught school for 34 years and I had been through a lot with my husband. He died about six months ago. I’m going tomorrow to visit Pam who lost her Mom a week ago. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Reconnecting with Pam and a couple other friends about 10 years ago in San Juan Capistrano.
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.
Me with my Mom and the doll I named after my beautiful Aunt Helen
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.
Helen was the baby of the family when this picture was taken with brothers Wayne and Jeff, and sister, Ella.
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 in later years
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.
The Sanderson sisters…from left, Helen, Elna, Ella, and Loretta
Helen recalls that her Dad, M.E. 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 M.E. 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.
Uncle Bob Haverberg around the time he and Aunt Helen were marriedAunt Helen (Haverberg) with her children Sue Ann, Blake, Bob, and Patrice… shortly after Uncle Bob passed away.
From Left: The ever stylish sisters, Helen, Ella, and Loretta
Murdo High School and reunion stories by Ralph Thomas, Class of 1967
Ralph Thomas
Senior Class Play
One spring morning in 1964 Gloria Thomas woke up with hundreds of red bumps all over her body. Her Mom Ethel said you have the measles and you can’t go to school.
Gloria replied but I have to go the Senior Class Play is today and I’m vital. Ethel prevailed, Gloria stayed home.
Gloria Thomas
Mrs. Peters (the play director) was notified. She immediately went into hiding for 3 hours assuming the understudy’s role. She performed admirably in the matinee and evening roles and saved the play with an A+ performance.
When Gloria returned to school the next week several classmates (names redacted) jokingly accused her of trying to sabotage the Senior Class Play!
Mrs. Peters
Near the end of the school year in 1964, the Junior Class spokesman Dave Beckwith spoke to the open assembly hall of all 4 grades. (That was the last year all 4 grades could be addressed from on or near the steps going up into the superintendents office. In the summer of 1964 the school was remodeled into home rooms.)
Anyway Dave started with a heart wrenching soliloquy about how the Senior Class was special and will hold a cherished spot in all our hearts.
Dave Beckwith
Through Dave’s tears he kept going and said the Junior Class wanted to present the Senior Class with a special gift he hoped they all would cherish.
On cue Dave’s assistants revealed the green dimpled head of Puff the Magic Dragon, the Junior Class’s winning float entry from the previous fall.
The Senior Men immediately rushed Puff’s head, took it outside, and stomped it into smithereens. And Puff you were gone .
Murdo High School
Jeff H. Sanderson liked to tell the story about going to the reunions for the Murdo High School and he saw Johnny Daum at one of those reunions probably in 2006. Jeff H walked up to Johnny and said you look just as good as you did in high school, and Johnny Daum puffs his chest out with a big smile. He felt so good.
And then Jeff H. sees Lyle Reynolds a few minutes later and he says wow Lyle you look even better than you did in high school (cause he did) and Johnny’s got this sad look creeping over his face….
So anyway, I saw Johnny Daum at Range Country Lodging at another reunion probably in 2011 and I say hi Johnny. And he was sitting at this table with some woman, and I said, do you remember back 5 years ago Jeff H. said to you that you look just as good as you did in high school and you were all pumped up and thought that was great? Then he saw Lyle Reynolds and said wow you look even better than you did in high school and it kind of made you disappointed? And Johnny said, yeah Ralph I get it.
And then I said I remember you were such a good singer in high school, just fabulous, you made us proud. And Johnny smiles.
Then I looked at that woman next to him and I said I thought this was your wife, but this is actually your sister right? And I said wow she’s even a better singer than you (cause she was) And Johnny’s like OK Ralph that’s enough….
Those 70ish Girls 