Helen Sanderson of Dassel looks back a
full century
NANCY DASHWOOD
Staff Writer
Helen Sanderson, Dassel, who recently cel-
ebrated an impressive birthday, is full of vim
and vigor, as well as plenty of stories and sass.
Sanderson, who lives at Lakeview Apartments
in Dassel, was born in that city Dec. 22, 1914.
That makes her 105 years old.
For history buffs, and to add a little per-
spective, Helen was born less than two years
after the Titanic sank.
Her birthday also took place three days be-
fore the somewhat-famous Christmas Truce,
during which opposed British and German
soldiers exchanged gifts and played football.
The truce took place on the battlefi elds of the
war. That’s World War I.
Happy childhood
Helen is the daughter of Simon and Alice
Oster. She had a brother and a sister.
One of her favorite memories of her child-
hood is lying in a strawberry patch and plop-
ping berries onto the family dog’s tongue.
“We were good friends like that,” she said.
Helen attended country school through the
eighth grade, and remembers she liked her
teacher and fellow students.
Her father died when she was still young,
which meant some tasks were handed down
to her.
“I had to drive to places, so I did,” she said.
“I had learned to drive from watching Papa
drive the old Ford.”
Helen said she loved to drive, but did so cau-
tiously. “I was very, very careful,” she said. “I
couldn’t afford to be reckless. The car had to
last.”
Young and fancy free
Although some details are dusty with the
long passage of time, Helen recalled that, as a
young woman, she and her mother traveled to
Salem, OR, to visit an uncle.
While there, a friend asked her if she want-
ed a job as a hotel housekeeper. She did.
“I left my mother and my aunt, and they
went on their way,” she said.
At the conclusion of one summer season,
some of Helen’s coworkers were planning to
head to Los Angeles, and invited her to come
along.
“I just got in their car and paid the fare,”
14
Senior
Helen Sanderson, Dassel, is 105 years old. She grew up on a hill above Pigeon Lake, by Dassel, and lived in California
and Montana, before fi nally coming home to roost in Dassel.
PHOTO BY NANCY DASHWOOD
she said. “It was just me and my little suit-
case. Isn’t that reckless?”
She joked, everything must have gone swim-
mingly, because there are no police records to
indicate otherwise.
A family of her own
Sanderson eventually met and mar-
ried Eugene F. Sanderson in Sacramen-
to, CA. She won’t share details about
their romance. “It was an adventure,”
she said. “One thing just led to another.”
Connections March/April 2020
She wasn’t kidding.
At the age of 42, Sanderson was expecting
her fi rst baby. “In the delivery room, the doc-
tor said, ‘Helen, there’s another one!’”
The Sandersons welcomed twin sons, Tom
and Ted.
Before the babies could come home from
the hospital, Eugene was struck with appen-
dicitis.
More SANDERSON on Pg 24
Senior Connections HJ.COM