Lenore Anderson

Visitation: Family will receive friends on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 from 4:00 6:00 p.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home

Funeral Service: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home

Interment: will be held at a later date in Mankato, MN

Lenore Anderson, age 91 of Miles City, Montana, passed away on Monday, March 5, 2007 at the Holy Rosary Health Care in Miles City.

Born to Henry and Marie Hickel on June 16, 1915 on a homestead near Coalwood, Lenore Anderson was a true daughter of the Montana prairie. Her father Henry was both a homesteader and a wrangler for hire. Her mother, a young Norwegian woman from Duluth, Minnesota, met Henry, a handsome young cowboy, as her mother and four brothers were stopping in Montana on their wagon trip to Oregon where they planned to settle.

Lenore was raised in a sod hut along with her two brothers and one sister. She attended the one room school in Olive until the family moved by buckboard to Miles City where her father gained employment in the Milwaukee yards.

Lenore graduated from Custer County High School and went on to live and work in Miles City until her twenty-fifth year when she met and married Gustav Andy Anderson. They made their home in Carterville, Montana where they had two children, June and Gary. In 1945 Andy purchased a cattle ranch on the Tongue River south of Miles City. For the next eight years or so the family divided their time between Carterville and the ranch where Lenores parents were also living. When Andy retired from the railroad, they moved to the ranch and also maintained a home in Miles City for the children to go to school. When her husband's health deteriorated, they moved to the home Lenore occupied for more than forty years at 512 South Prairie in Miles City. There she grew flowers and vegetables, nourished her lilacs and her friends. She loved to travel and relished visits to New York and New England to visit for her granddaughters graduation and wedding. She was delighted to visit her son and his family in California and later in Tucson, but she was always anxious to get home to Montana.

Lenore lived happily in her home with her two beloved dogs until her 90th year when she lost her ability to walk well. Then, with great sadness at leaving her home, she moved to Extended Care at the Holy Rosary. There, in her inimitable fashion, she became sprightly in her wheelchair and loved getting out and about in the hospital to chat with patients, staff, and visitors. Her friends June Baker and Debra Richardson came to visit and take her out.

Lenore was a lifelong Democrat and often boldly pressed her political views through letters to the Miles City Star and the Billings Gazette. She wrote letters to her family and friends alwaysand was not shy about her viewsright up to two weeks prior to her death on March 6, 2007.

Lenore was very proud of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who survive her. They are her daughter June, son Gary, granddaughters Anja and Petra Hanson, grandsons Nathan Hanson, Erik and Sean Anderson, and great granddaughters Liva and Siri Pierce and Jasmin and Zuleika Hanson. She is also survived by her niece Nikki Ruth and her nephews Harry and Edward Hickel and her sister-in-law Ruth Hickel.

Family will receive friends on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 from 4:00 6:00 p.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home. Interment will be held at a later date in Mankato, MN