Volunteer of the Year credits tough times for building character

On a bitter February morning when Margaret Anderegg was 6 years old, her home in rural Aitkin County, Minnesota, burned to the ground.

“I remember my mother, standing in the snow, crying and wringing her hands and saying over and over, ‘All my treasures, all my treasures.’”

But Margaret’s mother wasn’t talking about possessions destroyed in the fire. “She meant us, “ Margaret explains. “All her children had been saved.”

There were nine at that time, and Margaret’s mother was pregnant with the last.

Her mother’s courage influenced Margaret throughout her life. “I always thought, if she can do that, I can do this.”

All the food stored in the root cellar was destroyed, and the family lived the rest of the winter in an enclosed shed with rutabagas meant for cattle feed as their staple food. The next spring, her father and older brothers built a log cabin to replace the house.

“Food was a major deal,” she comments.

When she remembers the hard times now, Margaret sees them as part of character formation for herself and her siblings. “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” she quotes.

She needed that strength back in 1955 when she and husband Harlan (Andy) Anderegg moved to Odessa. Harlan was a carpenter, and the two of them helped to build homes in the growing city. The first home they built was their own, the same house she lives in now.

“We laid the foundation, put up the frame, did the sheetrocking and put up the roof,” she says. “The neighbors got scared to see me up there. I was pregnant at the time.”

With an urgency typical of mothers-to-be, Margaret wanted to see the house built in time for the baby. They made it with time to spare: the house was finished in September and the baby, a boy, was born in December.

Margaret is mother to six children: sons Dennis, Mark, Tony (Anthony) and Clare and daughters Patty and Gloria. A dedicated den mother during her sons’ growing years, Margaret considers it one of her proudest accomplishments that all four of her sons made Eagle Scout. Margaret saw many scouts begin and later drop out during that time.

“Unless they have the support of their folks - and it usually falls on Mom - they don’t make it through,” she says.

In 2006, Margaret was selected Volunteer of the Year by the Odessa Council for the Arts and Humanities. She was nominated by the Permian Basin Poetry Society. The Council also praised Margaret for her volunteer activities through the years for the Boy Scouts, Meals on Wheels, Burnet Elementary School and St. Luke’s Methodist Church.

Margaret began to learn the value of helping others when she was young. Her mother solicited funds from an older brother who was working so that Margaret could have tap-dancing lessons. The lessons were definitely a luxury, but “Mother thought it would give me confidence. “

Later, as a young teacher, Margaret was requested to give in her turn. “My younger brother wanted to go to agricultural school, and I helped pay the tuition. He graduated valedictorian of his class. “

Current president of the Permian Basin Poetry Society, Margaret’s love for writing goes back to her years on the family farm. She remembers her mother reciting poetry “at the least excuse, “ while the family joined together in chores like shelling peas or feeding calves.

“She knew all the masters, “ Margaret says, remembering that one favorite was “To a Waterfowl “ by William Cullen Bryant.

Soon, Margaret was making up her own verses and songs. At the age of 9, it became clear to her how much poetry could mean to others. She composed a poem and sent it to an older brother serving in New Guinea during World War II.

“It was just three little verses with rhymes on the second and fourth lines, “ Margaret recalls. “He carried it until it wore out and fell apart. “

Margaret’s poems about family and children, love and loss, humor and hope are becoming meaningful to many people these days. Last year at the age of 74, she published her first book of poems, These Faces of Love (2006 WordWright of Alpine). In “Just a Mother, “ she compares a mother’s life to that of a society-minded friend.

Finding a goal, setting a pace,

I toss up a rainbow and spur the chase,

And wash Miss America’s

jam from her face.

Margaret also contributed to the Permian Basin Poetry Society’s anthology “Wildflowers “ (2007 Arlington Publications of Odessa). Both books are available from the Ector County Library.

In addition to publicizing the two books, Margaret is compiling the Poetry Society’s next anthology and working on a second book of her own. She has plenty of material, since she takes care of three children at her listed daycare home during the afternoons.

“I’m always in a clutter, “ she confesses. “It comes from trying to do 17 things at once. “