As I get around the Highline area and talk with celebrated seniors, I'm seeing a pattern, here. Most of the people that are considered special, by others, are those that gave of themselves - most never stopped. They're almost always volunteers or people who have simply made a difference in someone or many people's lives.

So, it wasn't a surprise that I found out that Helen Anderson, 93, was also such a person. She came from a long line of Seattleites. In fact, Charles Miller, her grandfather (on her mother's side) lived and worked in Taylor, Washington (which no longer exists). He was an expert brickmaker and paved most of the streets of downtown Seattle.

She said, "The better brickmaker you were, the bigger house you had. My grandfather had a very large house". Of course, he had ten kids, too, so they needed something a bit larger than your average rambler!
Her father, Stephen Sanislo, was a beloved fireman who went around to all of the Seattle area schools to teach fire prevention. They even named a school after him.

Helen grew up right in the heart of downtown Seattle, before her parents moved to West Seattle when she was four. She remembered, "Us four kids used to catch the streetcar that picked us up at the Junction and would drop us off at Sears Roebuck. It's now that big Starbucks building. When we'd go up Queen Anne or Capitol Hill, the cars had to hook up to this pulley deal to tow us up the hills. It was a special time, back then, in Seattle."

Even though this was back in the days when women would busy themselves with cooking, sewing, cleaning and patching scraped knees, her mother was the one to spearhead the PTA in West Seattle and was very active in fundraising.

From what Helen told me, I'm betting that the kids kept their mother busy, too. "We walked or roller-skated everywhere. We were given a lot of freedom to roam around. Times were different then. Most people knew the kids and who they belonged to, so we were pretty safe," she said.

She remembered the Great Depression and how it affected them, as a family. "The banks didn't have enough money to even cover everyone's wages. When my dad would get paid, the bank would only give him part of the money and then an IOU for the rest. We learned to make do. On Sundays, we'd get to have a formal dinner and then the treat was to have homemade bread and milk in the evening. That was sure tasted good."

Helen told me that she had decided that she either wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. When I asked her why, she said, "Well, our family was always doing things for other people, so I guess it just seemed natural for me."

She worked at Swedish, in the Tumor Institute. When I asked her what she did, she giggled and said, "Oh, I did everything. During the war years, I had to learn everything. Hutch (Dr. Hutchinson) was a surgeon back then, I had to learn how to take the x-rays and run all the big machines. We started out with experts from Germany and England, but the nurses had to take over during the war."

In 1935, she met Frank Anderson and in 1940 they were wed. "He ended up starting a hamburger business called 'Frank's Place' in White Center. Some folks may still remember it. His whole family would make up special foods to serve there" she said proudly.

In 1944, they moved to Burien. "It was very rural, back then, and we had quite a bit of property on the lake. I could just walk out the door and be sitting beside the water." I could tell by her face that there were some good memories of those days. They had two boys, which I imagine kept her hopping, too.

Helen also taught first aid at the Red Cross, because of the possible threat of bombings in the U.S. She was also the education director at Burien Hospital (which is now Highline Medical Center) for 25 years. So this little gal was certainly more than just your average run-of-the-mill nurse.

On top of her professional career, Helen always found time to get involved with the local churches. For years, she taught Sunday school to 100 kids - all under the age of five. One of her women's groups made quilts and those large mosquito nets to send over to third-world countries. Needless to say, she was always busy.

In 1984, Frank died, but it certainly didn't seem to slow her down. To this day, she is still teaching a women's Bible class at Lake Burien Presbyterian Church and gets together with her nurse friends from Swedish, of which she (at 93) is the youngest!

Her son, Frank, had this to share about his mother "We (he and his brother) went down some wild and crazy paths and we are who we are, today, because we had a praying mom. The influence is the giving influence."