Anne

I don't have a lot of memories of Anne from my early childhood.  I interacted mostly with Mary.  She was kind, and always had something to laugh about.  When I was a teen, Anne (along with Jeanne and Mary) would wait at doorways for me to open the door.  They were insistent that I learn to be a gentleman.  Along with Jeanne and Mary, Anne did well in school.  I remember seeing the honor roll when I first entered jr. high.  Anne, Jeanne, and Mary were all on it.  I felt considerable pressure to not do less than they had done.  So I was a motivated student.  Even in 7th Grade, I would stay up well past my bed time if I had a Math problem that I couldn't solve.  I would read the chapter over again to see what I had missed.  If that didn't work, I would read the next chapter to see if I could learn something there.  I had good grades all through jr. high and high school.  Anne, Jeanne, and Mary were my motivation.  I couldn't be outdone by my sisters.
   Anne didn't date a lot in high school.  She was the nerdy time--bookish, you might say.  I remember that after high school Anne began to worry about marriage--who to marry.  There was a guy named Babcock (who went on to become something fancy, lawyer maybe.  Rich.  He proposed to Anne, but she couldn't ever find it in her to give him a positive answer.  She was concerned.  My father gave her a blessing.  She turned Babcock down.  I don't know how she and Darrell Hansen started dating.  It happened when I was on my mission.  Anne was a bit worried because both Jeanne and Mary married before her.  As an older sister, it's not fun to watch your younger sisters marry off before you--despite being in the modern age.  Anne has often remarked that she knew Darrell from the bus.  He rode the same bus to high school, and would sometimes exit via the emergency exit on the back of the bus.  At least that's what I remember of the story.
   I was at about the half way mark in my mission to Finland when I received the wedding announcement.
    One episode that I don't like to remember, but it was part of my learning experience: after my mission I was at home and fixing myself a sandwich in the kitchen.  For some reason Anne was visiting, and for some reason Anne decided to mop the kitchen floor.  She was just the type who was not comfortable leaving work undone.  She was pregnant with your cousin, Rebekah, and needed help.  I was not in the mood to worry about it and let her do the job on her own.  I felt as guilty as can be not pitching in and helping my pregnant sister mop my mother's floor.  What an idiot I was.
    I worked for Darrell for a while.  He was building some houses and needed a grunt laborer.  I was the grunt, running electrical wires, putting up sheet rock, and mudding.  I'm not skilled in this area at all, but did learn enough from Darrell that I have been able to do some of that kind of work myself.
   It wasn't long before Anne and Darrell moved to Missouri.  Your mother and I visited them when we went on our honeymoon.  We visited Church history sites in Missouri and Illinois, and spent a night at Darrell and Anne's first place--before it burned down.  We put up a tent (a very small, cheep, pup tent), and were washed out by a Missouri style flood.  The tent didn't keep out much water at all.
   Anne was very kind.
   Later, my parents visited Anne in Missouri.  At the time my father was farming a ten acre farm that had been his father's at Green Jacket.  On their visit to Missouri my father was impressed with the quality of farmland and the low price.  Before he and mother made their return journey to Utah, Mom had Dad's signature on a bill of sale for the place Lucy and Sam now own and where your mother and I are blessed to live.  Later, my father would become homesick for Utah and tell my mother that he was going to sell their home and move back.  My mother refused--and they had the worst argument of their lives.  My mother won, and the family stayed.  But Sam and Lucy thought that a divorce was about to happen.  It didn't.  And my parents have become a sort of legend out here as model Mormons, which I think they were.  Most people here don't know of their terrible argument.  All they know of them is the wonderful examples they were of faithful service in the Church.  Something to remember if you ever have a terrible argument from which you think there is no going back.
   Some time after my parents moved to Missouri, Anne was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She and Darrell didn't have insurance to fight it.  Darrell's parents were very much into homeopathic remedies and encouraged Anne to deal with her cancer with herbs and such.  I know that Anne received priesthood blessings, but I remember feeling that I needed to get to Missouri to bless her myself.  We made the trip.  I don't think any of you would have been old enough to remember much of that.
   Anne finally decided to go ahead with chemo and surgery with some financial help from our parents.  She told me that she decided that she wanted to be here to raise her children.  Interestingly, she became pregnant while on her chemo--something that should have been impossible.  I believe it was with Luke.  Sammy came later.  Anne has made a complete recovery.
   I don't remember exactly when, but my mother was also diagnosed with colon cancer.  This scared me to death.  I was working at SILO at the time I received the phone call telling me.  Both of my grandmothers had died of colon cancer, so I thought this was a death sentence.  But treatments had improved considerably and my mother lived--with half a colon.  A few years after than my mother would be diagnosed with another type of bone cancer.  She would live with the effects of this until her death.
    Anne is an amazing teacher.  She is gifted at engaging children. Her home is filled with books.  She lives her profession.  In the Church she gives freely of these talents, especially in primary where I witnessed her work as chorister.  This might seem a less than important calling in the Church, but Anne was the example of the person who magnifies the calling until it is the greatest calling in the Church.  Her impact on children's lives cannot be measured.
   The curse of having a building contractor for a husband is that you never get to live in a finished home.  Darrell never had the motivation to complete a home.  He was always busy with the projects that he was paid for or service for the Church.  Anne lost two homes to fire, and the third was hit by a tornado.  (It might have been three homes that burned.)
   Darrell had build Anne her dream home, and this one was (at least I believe) mostly finished.  But it wasn't to be for long.  The high school was discarding the foam padding from their poll vault pit.  Darrell was happy to haul it home with the intention of building his kids their own poll vault pit.  (Darrell is a sports super fan.)  One of the boys was playing with matches behind the house where the foam was stored, and lit it on fire.  The foam burns slowly--at first.  But once it is started it is almost impossible to stop.  In the middle of the night the back side of the home was completely involved.  Everyone gathered in front of the house.  Darrell had called Peter, who had responded, but fallen back to sleep.  A head count revealed that someone was still in the house.  Darrell wrapped a towel around his face and went back for Peter--saved his life.  The fire spread to the two out buildings and destroyed everything.  All they had were the clothes (pajamas) on their backs.
   A local Christian church came to their aid, and the local Wal-Mart also.  The family was back in clothes.  At the time of the fire, my English class was reading a poem written by an early Puritan, Anne Bradstreet, titled "Upon the Burning of our House."  The similarities between the poem and my sister's experience are interesting.
   Anne's example of cheerful service, of dedication and hard work have been a great blessing to me.