Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: January 28th, 2014

Shortly after John Bernard came out to Hillsboro, his brother, Frederick William came out with his family as well.  Frederick William was born in Francis Creek, Wisconsin on January 3, 1858.  He died in Hillsboro, Oregon on February 2, 1939.  He married Anna Barbara Augustine (born Whitelaw) in Francis Creek, Wisconsin on November 29, 1883.  She was born on January 2, 1863 and died in Hillsboro, Oregon on March 3, 1943.  They had eleven children.  Their oldest son was William Bernard who had been born in Francis creek in 1884 and became a close friend of our own grandfather, Joseph Delsman.  Frederick William seems to have had more money than our ancestor when he moved to Oregon.  He bought a nice farm in North Plaines, Oregon.  It is a little community just west of Portland and North of Hillsboro, close to Hillsboro.  The fact that there were so many cousins there in North Plaines meant that the two families stayed in close contact throughout the time that John Bernard and his family were in Hillsboro and Tillamook.  Even afterwards, there was contact between them and the family of our Uncle Henn and Aunt Frances (Delsman).

John Bernard seemed to have been a better farmer than his own father had predicted and soon he had a prosperous farm going.  As it turns out, the school situation in Tillamook at the time was rather mediocre, to put it nicely, and there were many Catholics there so they induced the Sisters of Saint Mary of Oregon from Beaverton to send some nuns there to start a school.  They got a large old building that was in desperate need of being fixed up and they called it the cheese box.  To fix it up, they turned to the Sander boys.   There were five of them, Joseph, William, Heini, Louis and Leo.  Louis later became a popular priest.  We always called him Father Louis (pronounced Louie).  The order at that time was a German order and so the classes were given half in German and half in English.  The typical public school in those days was like the Kentuck school that was still in operation when I started to school.  The Kentuck school was a one room school house, when I was young, it had 18 students for all eight grades, the teacher was an old woman, I believe she was 81 one that time, had never married and could really teach the children to read, that was her strong point.  During the war, when we went to get our ration books, she was in charge of handing them out and making sure that each eligible person got one book.  After she retired, the school closed and everyone went to Glasgow.  At any rate, that is where Aunt Mamie went to school.  The Sander boys were delighted to see so many young and pretty Delsman girls come along and soon, Uncle Joe and Aunt Clara became a pair and planned a wedding, then Uncle Will and Aunt Ag, and then Uncle Heini and Aunt Frances.  They had a wonderful time growing up and did a lot together.  But then at the last minute, Aunt Frances married the Schneider boy and moved to the Hillsboro area.  Uncle Heini was naturally depressed over that turn of events, but Aunt Mamie was delighted.  She was nine years younger than Uncle Heini and very much the baby sister, but had been madly in love with him for years.  So, she hooked up with him right away, Uncle Heini’s sunny disposition lit up and they had a wonderful marriage, so in the end, three Sander brothers married three Delsman sisters after all.  Uncle Heini was by far our favorite Uncle when we were growing up.

Let me skip ahead a bit.  Aunt Mamie was, as I said, the baby sister of the family.  She was also the biggest worrier that I have ever known.  In her old age, she worried about what would happen when Uncle Heini died, but then she contented herself, her older sister, our Aunt Ag would take care of her.  But as the years went by, she noticed that Aunt Ag was herself aging and pretty soon, Aunt Ag could not even take care of herself, let alone Aunt Mamie.  So, she worried.  But as it turned out, Uncle Heini outlived her by two years and took care of her until she died in Macauly Hospital, Coos Bay.  All that good worrying for nothing.