When I interviewed George Anderson and he asked me how old I thought he was, I guessed 78. He was 88. He has had a varied and interesting life for a fellow born in small town, Iowa, the son of a minister who could preach only in Swedish. As much as he didn't like his high school experience, he got himself a college education and became a teacher, a school principal, and more. He tells us his story. My thanks to Ione Jensen and the Douglas County Historical Society for this transcription.
Vagabond: And your wife helped you with the horses?
George: She could saddle up ten horses by herself. You know we’d have schools come out for skip days. Well, I’d be in school and she’d have to saddle up the horses, ten horses for those kids.
Vagabond: And she could. Well, she had ridden herself before. She was a farm girl so she was made of good stock.
George: She cleaned stalls. She’s known nothing but work. Neither one of us.
Vagabond: When you retired, you had been in Malaysia, you’ve been in Papua, New Guinea. You could be anywhere in the world, you came back here. Why did you come back here?
George: We had the resort.
Vagabond: But after you lost the resort, you came back from Papua, New Guinea, why did you come back here?
George: Then I was retired.
Vagabond: You could’ve retired to Florida, California, Las Vegas or….
George: We had very good living in this house. See that whole area, it’s a skating rink in the winter time. I used to teach skating. But I never did with our daughter. She had a school and the kids would come from all over around here, just step out the door and skate. One year we had 20 people living on the place here overnight. Twenty different people for a week.
Vagabond: For a class?
George: No, our relatives. They’d play broom hockey and stuff like that. We had more fun.
Vagabond: So you probably came back for family.
George: Yes.
Vagabond: One of the things I ask people about is the condition and the prospects of the small towns in rural America. What do you see for Alexandria?
George: Alexandria right now is growing tremendously.
To be continued....
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