Grace Genevieve Anderson, age 86 of Newfolden, MN, passed away September 25, 2014 at the home of her daughter, Jeanne Vrem in West Fargo, ND. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at Westaker Free Lutheran Church in Newfolden, MN, with Pastor Phil Rokke officiating. A visitation will take place one hour prior to the memorial service on Tuesday at the church. Grace Genevieve (Colebank) Anderson was born at home in Woodside Township in Polk County on Armistice Day 1927, and grew up on her family's small farm with six brothers and sisters. Her parents were John and Clara Colebank. Her sisters were Ann and Martha Ruth. Her brothers were Maynard, Lawrence, John, and Norman. As a rural Depression-era child, she grew up without indoor plumbing or electricity. She fetched the cows from the pasture at milking time and knew how to put a chicken to sleep for the night by tucking its head under its wing and rocking it back and forth in her arms. Her parents lit candles on the tree on Christmas Eve, and sometimes Christmas gifts meant long underwear and an orange in her stocking. She attended a one-room school through 8th grade and graduated from Mentor High School. She was confirmed at Maple Lake Lutheran Church. Grace was active in 4-H, and in 1943 was awarded a $25 war bond for her achievements in 4-H. Her brother Norman, who had traded his bicycle for a Model A, taught her to drive. She was a fan of Shirley Temple and collected photos of Hollywood stars for her scrapbook. Grace attended Mayville State Teacher's College and taught rural school. A student, Robert Bok, gave her the prize-winning oil landscape he painted, which she kept in her living room. She studied nursing at the University of Minnesota and was working as a nurse in Thief River Falls when she met Edor Anderson, who grew up on a farm outside of Newfolden. They married in 1950 at Maple Lake Church and settled in Fargo, where they both worked for Sears. They planned to move to Minneapolis so Dad could attend Dunwoody Institute on the GI Bill, but were called back to his parents' farm, where they belonged to Bethania Lutheran Church, and began a lifelong friendship with Gordon and Barbara Bring. In 1951 Greg, their first child, was born, followed by Sheri and Garry. In 1957 Edor was hired by Erie Mining Company on the Iron Range. He called Grace and told her to sell the cattle and pack up. The first six months they lived in Evergreen Trailer Court while homes in Hoyt Lakes were built. Grace found a lifelong friend, Rose Sammartano, who lived across the street from her new home. Like other new mining families, they were called "packsackers" at first. Grace and Rose visited and took up hobbies, playing canasta antiquing furniture, digging in abandoned places for old bottles to collect, making ceramics, going to rummage sales, sharing their lives with each other and with other women. Two more children, Randy and Jeanne, came along. She and Dad joined Faith Lutheran Church. Grace was a Cub Scout den mother and part of a Ladies Circle. She and Dad joined the local Moose Lodge, the VFW, and the American Legion. Grace had a wealth of jokes, riddles, and songs. She read to us and recited poems from a Child's Garden of Verses, which she had received for Christmas one year. She knew how to stretch a dollar, raising dough for buns and caramel rolls in her big roaster, frying homemade doughnuts, canning fruits and vegetables, knitting and sewing. She knitted socks, slippers, sweaters and mittens. She sewed, including the lace and purple satin evening gown she wore for a national Moose Lodge event. One time, Grace and Rose decided to take an evening class at the high school, but the class was filled, so they signed up for woodworking. Grace already bowled in a league, and now she spent time on a lathe turning old bowling pins into lamps. Her big project for the class was building a kitchen cabinet to go above the refrigerator. Grace may have always had more hopes than expectations. When she lived in Thief River Falls, she started buying a set of sterling silver on payments. Then, one weekend back home, she heard her parents talking about the terrible risks of credit. She got worried and packed up the silverware and shipped it back. She dreamed of having a piano and, when she and Dad did get one, played old songs and hymns. Dad was handy with anything electrical or mechanical, but most of the time he was fixing other people's stuff, so she got by with a balky washer and dryer for many years. Grace was enterprising, and she took up selling Fuller Brush products. As we got a little older, she took on a night manager job at John's Pizza in Aurora, Minnesota, working every other week. All the teenagers in town knew her name, and knew her to be strict if they misbehaved, but always fair. One of the most difficult times of her life was the loss of her oldest son, Greg, in 1969. Her friendships, especially with Rose, meant everything to her in those times. In 1973, Dad and Grace moved back to the farm where the heat consisted of an oil burner in what had once been the dining room and a gas-wood stove in the kitchen. There was a pantry but no counters. Hot water and indoor toilet had been added just a few years before. Dad kept his job at the mine, driving back to the farm on his days off. Grace was watching out the kitchen window when Randy, splitting wood for the kitchen, chopped off the tip of his thumb. She was home when Dad electrocuted himself welding a tractor and had to be taken to the emergency room. She was at the farm when Dad, still working at the mine, had a massive heart attack in Hoyt Lakes. Grace worked at the locker in Newfolden. She and Edor built a new home on the farm. She went back to school at age 53, graduating with a 2 year accounting degree and learning computer programming. She opened a café in Stephen, Minnesota, with John Bring as her right hand. For several years she was a fixture in Stephen and made more friends, including the kids in town. She worked part time for Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Service, visiting farms and interviewing farmers. Grace enjoyed bingo with her friend Nellie Oleson. Grace and Dad were living in Stephen when Edor died suddenly of congestive heart failure. A week later, she lost the vision in her right eye. Six months later, while she was in the process of moving back to the farm the home she and Edor built burned down. It was a discouraging time, but she found a mobile home to move to the farm where the house they built had stood. Grace's lived at the farm with frequent visits to her daughter and son-in law Mark and Jeanne until 2001, when health problems starting becoming significant. Except for occasional nursing home stays, she lived with them. In December of 2009 she went on dialysis. She still took trips to southern Minnesota, Minneapolis, Kansas City, the Iron Range, Newfolden, and Fertile to see relatives and old friends. She attended events like Potato Days in Barnesville, the Hjemkomst Festival and Bonanzaville, and others. She even enjoyed bingo until a few weeks before her death. Grace was preceded in death by her parents, John and Clara Colebank; her brothers Maynard, Lawrence, John, and Norman; her husband Edor; and her son Gregory. She leaves her children Sheri, Garry, Randy, and Jeanne, and 9 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. She also leaves the memories of her many other relatives and friends, those still with us and those who have gone before.