Those 70ish Girls

I vowed to write a first at last. I’d never done this in the past.

I thought there would be nothing to it. It seemed like anyone could do it.

I brought my family all together, so we could write a Christmas letter.

I read those I’d received from others. Written with love by grandmas or mothers.

I said,

“These can be a great example, but our own exciting times are ample.”

One friend’s son has lots of knowledge. He’s only ten and goes to college.

I asked.

“Who has something that compares?” All I saw were empty stares.

My son read,

“This mom said she lost a ton. Now she out-runs everyone.”

A daughter said,

“Mom don’t be sad. look at all the fun you had, eating donuts, pies, and cake.

Who needs to run for heaven’s sake?”

Ignoring her I forged ahead. “Let’s write about our trips instead.”

“Do I have a volunteer to highlight our time-off last year?”

“You said we’d soon be on vacation, and then you changed it to staycation.

Instead of seeing Disneyland and building castles in the sand…

We stayed right here in our own house and drew pictures of Mickey Mouse.”

Had I been overconfident? There must be one accomplishment.

“Did anyone get to school on time, clean their room or solve a crime?”

(They were reading others news and it was giving them the blues.)

I said,

“Let’s not continue this. We’ll send pretty cards this Christmas.”

“We should not antagonize all those with less exciting lives.”

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

They say tomorrow never comes. It really does, you know

Yesterday was just today a few short hours ago.

Time goes by so quickly…You’ve heard that to no end.

Time can be your enemy… or your new best friend.

The best times can be over in the blinking of an eye.

A day can last forever, yet the years seem to fly by.

If something bad is happening, they say this too shall pass.

If the best is yet to come, then…to come… goes way too fast.

So what does one do…while time keeps marching on?

March along right with it, from dawn until new dawn.

As our lives continue and what is… becomes… what was,

It doesn’t seem quite fair that we’re unable to hit pause.

We can save a time and store it, and spend that time again.

And sometimes here and there, we can remember where and when.

Those 70ish girls… Our magical Sanderson Christmas Eve

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2016/12/02/murdo-girl-we-celebrate-a-good-man-on-a-very-important-birthday/

My Best Friend’s Mom – Part 2

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!

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.

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.

Love is by far the greatest conqueror.

My Best Friend’s Mom

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.

By Valerie Halla

Aunt Helen:

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 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.

From Left: The ever stylish sisters, Helen, Ella, and Loretta