Passions Of those Anderson Girls

The strength of the Oak Tree Is a symbol of Family, a block print by N Roncketti

Keeping  Mother’s Research

Keeping  a daily journal has always been something that my family did. In fact, I know it goes back generations. My Grandmother had a trunk full of Journals from her ancestors and herself when she past away. My mother inherited many of them and some were sent to my Uncle Roy. Now some are stored in my sister Peggy’s garage in an old trunk along with my Mothers old Journals.

My Little Writers writing

 
I remember getting my first Diary when I was 5 years old. It was white with gold trim and it had a lock with a key. I was so excited to write my thoughts every night before I went to bed. I watched my Mom and Grandmother do that and I felt like it was such a grown up thing to do. I never read my Mom’s writing until much later in my life, but she wrote many stories based on her daily journals. I don’t think I really appreciated her writing as much as I do now. Maybe it’s just something older people get off on, but reading her stories now is different, now that I have spent some time writing myself. The old stories and pictures of where my Mom came from and those of my grandmothers and even the older ones from my great grandfather and his brother, Nathanial an artist In Lamar, Colorado. Old news paper articles about my Dad’s Dad and his restaurant and truck stop in Fremont Nebraska, they all give me this kind of understanding about who I am and how far my family has come, It’s so interesting to me now to see the evolution of our family and know our history.

Before my Mom died she was frantic about losing her research for a story she was writing. She kept trying to keep it in order. She kept it all in a Tupperware container. It was a story about Admiral Byrd and his trip to the center of the earth. My Mom had worked for Jeppesen Mapping Company in Denver when she was in her 30’s and I believe she met Admiral Byrd at that time. I think she had a life long crush on him and found excitement in his discoveries. I sent the research to a friend who belonged to the Middle Earth Society to see if there was any information that was printable- "No there wasn’t" she said, but I still have her Tupperware container and though all the pages were mixed up, (she kept it with her even in the nursing home until she had no idea what it was!) all her research was kept in that box, in the basket of her walker. Even when she ran away from the nursing home her story went with her!
My friend Laura Hendrie a writer I met when I was caring for my Mom, went to see her a couple times a week and they talked about her “research” and writing. She would perk up to tell me about their visits. I owe a lot to Laura, and I thank her again for what she did. Laura has written a few books I just finished "Remember Me" and  "Stygo"  is a favorite.

I feel like my Mother’s research should have been sprinkled with her ashes.

Laura Hendrie,You can order her books in any bookstore.

There is something so very personal about the written word. A part of you goes into the page. Maybe no one will ever read it, which really isn’t the point; it’s the writer writing and the emotion in putting the words out into the universe that gives you a sense of foreverness. Maybe that’s why so many old people write their memoirs. Of course there are many people who are so fascinating you really want to hear their stories. My family had stories but living through the Dust Bowl Days and The Depression and Cowboys Life on the Range, wasn’t really interesting to me, at least not when my Mom was writing about them. I know what I write about is not really  interesting to most people but I can’t stop the words from coming!

Scrap booking is such a rage for some these days. Crafting the perfect pages is so cutsie to me. I thought I would never do that. When I was about 10 my Great Aunt Madge gave each of my sisters and I a scrapbook that she had made of old cards and newspaper clippings and post cards that she had saved over her life. I thought then it was so cool that she had made all of them and that they were all so different. I wish that I had kept it now, but some where in my traveling it was lost. I think my sister Peggy still has hers. I want to think Blogging is Queen of like scrapbooking without the cutsie!!

I clip things that are interesting to me out of magazines and I make Idea Books and Cookbooks it’s all pretty much a waste of time except when I need an idea or a recipe! I sit here nearly every morning for a couple hours purging words or cutting and pasting. Many say my words should only be written in my journal, and maybe that’s where my Mothers words should have stayed too, but I sit and write, to you and the universe. This is what trips my trigger.

Peggy Lee  with her brand new Gibson

The Sisters

I have wanted to write about my sisters for the longest time. I think they are strong fascinating and creative women.
   Peggy Lee was always my sister in crime. Growing up only a year apart we shared everything, Peggy started writing songs and playing the guitar when we were in high school. She also learned to play the piano by making a cardboard cut out of the piano keys and she would sit and “practice” on cardboard without the sound. She wrote about love. She played in a band or two and she even made an album, vinyl the old style. I was so proud of her for her song writing. Having 2 beautiful daughters, Millicent and Cindy, at a young age seemed to intensify her ambition for music and a career. Sometimes a strong passion for something takes you to places you don't mean to go and are misunderstood. Mistakes that are difficult to overcome. Believe me I have made mine! Maybe Peggy's second marriage was only to increase her music skills and to produce the only beautiful baby boy in our family, in that generation! Adam. Adam was the last of my sister’s children and he deserves a story of his own someday. 

  I don’t think Peggy writes as much any more, but she has kept up with her music skills over the years, besides the guitar and the piano, she plays the flute and the cello, I love to hear her sing and play. She has a beautiful voice that changes her personality when the melodies drift out of her lips. I myself was not as musical but I loved playing the clarinet and the saxophone in the marching band when I was in grade school, Later I tried the Banjo, with lessons from Banjo Bill, an icon who played banjo for years in Victor Colorado, at the Victor Hotel, (He asked me to marry him, why I didn’t I'll never know!) The washtub base I played during my Palmer Lake days when I was pregnant. That was quite a spectacle in my overall skirt And Carlee’s Dad at the guitar. Later the harmonica caught me and my favorite number was “Kinda Fond’a Wanda” by Neil Young! I called myself an Axe Woman for a while!

   Peggy also developed her talent for sewing. Through a home based business in quilting and design she has been quite successful. She owns a quilt machine with a 14-foot arm so she can do quilting of king size quilts professionally. She also shares a space with other juried artists in The Spanish Village, which is a part of the Balboa Park and the San Diego Art Museum. Check out Peggy at quiltarte@zhibit.org. She has some very unique pieces of fabric fun including horsehair felting and flower dyed quilts. She also teaches her craft at the Spanish Village Square.
Sewing was after her 30-year career in Jewelry making and Gemology, she began making Indian Jewelry right after high school in a shop in Manitou, CO. She had her own shop in El Cajon,CA and was making beautiful pieces when divorce took her shop and tools away. She still works in a jewelry store, but she needs to have the ability for expression that working for yourself gives.I believe she is doing appraisals now.

Judith Kay and her great smile

                                       
 


  During all this writing, artistry and music making my youngest sister, Judith Kay was growing up with a furious passion for horses. She kept a trunk of equestrian paraphernalia, brushes, combs, leads, halters, books, and blankets. She had a couple of horse dolls from the time she was very young and she would get all the adornments for her toys. Her first real horse was a pregnant Shetland pony she caught at a rodeo. That caused my Mother quite a stir as we lived in an apartment with nowhere to keep it! The horse passion still burns in Judy. She and another woman started the LA Equestrian News Paper. Judy worked as the Art Director for the Paper, and now she handles a web-based business ushorse.biz and does freelance illustration and graphic design. Judy has done an awesome job with her writing and illustration work, not to mention her Fine Art and Photography. Her dedication is so unique and unbelievable. Judy went to Art Center, In Pasadena and has studied with some very fine artists, I recall Herman Raymond for one and her watercolor series of Blues Singers was phenomenal and my favorite.
Judy was married to Dennis Walker who filled her life with music and blues! As a blues producer and writer, bass player, piano player, etc. he has quite a career with interesting and colorful personalities. Clearly he brought passion for music into her life, along with increasing the rest of the family's passion for music.
  Her present husband, Peter works for Universal Studios as an Art Director for movies and episodic TV and Is now working on the remake of Hawaii Five 0. We are all so excited to see the new show and wonder what Peter will do next! 
Peter has done some special effects in remodeling on their home in Glendale, CA also. As a gardener and gourmet cook he spices up Judy’s life. And his children gave her a ready made family.

Judy rides Dressage and practices daily with her Hanoverians, a breed of horse from Germany. Peggy also loves horses and rode with her husband Roy Caballero as mounted police officers for San Diego Police Department. Roy works for a construction company in San Diego County and he also has a special flare for cooking! He was born in Mexico and his authentic Mexican cuisine is very yummy. Roy and Peggy also did a huge remodle on their home (the home where Gregory Peck was born, they call it the Peck House!) Peggy keeps her horses in her back yard and loves them like children! 
My sisters and their families are very talented and wonderful people I respect and love them very much. They're support and patient understanding means the world to me. I wish everyday that evolution didn’t mean living so far from the ones I love! I just want to go have coffee with my sisters in the worst way.

My oldest sister Sue Ellen always has been somewhat distant, trying to keep in contact with her is always a puzzle. She has lived for the past 15 years on Orcas Island in the San Juan’s near Seattle. I’m not sure why she has isolated herself from the rest of the family and I don’t really have a clue why she has no desire to know and love her fabulously talented and caring sisters and their families, maybe it has something to do with having to spend so much of her childhood babysitting the rest of us, and though she hasn’t kept in touch I just bet that she writes. And I bet music is in her blood and there is color and beauty around her. She is a vital part of this Peppersauce Family and I hope someday she will find her way home.
  I feel like writing about my sisters does not really do them justice They are such real and special friends but this is a quick glimpse into my family and selected memories shares a little bit about who we are and where we came from. 

We are all very different and we live very different lives but there is this thread of similarity that runs thru us and connects us in ways that only families share. We are a Peppersauce Family that grew from the Peppersauce Bottom in Southern Colorado on the Arkansas River. Four women raised by women, with a strength and understanding that was breed into us. My sisters carry the passion of  wild mustangs and the pallet of a sunset in a mountain canyon, music in their hearts and a sense of communication that we all welcome the chance to share. I hope you have enjoyed my story; it’s been so long since I’ve written and please check out our web sites and spend some time telling your story to someone you love.

My Mom and I The Last Good Picture!