Post by StressedOut on Oct 28, 2005 15:00:21 GMT -6
Treasured memories
Family, friends reminisce about Terry and Darleen Anderson
By Megan Hockley
LAGRANGE — Two closed caskets were covered in flowers at LaGrange’s Carney-Frost Funeral Home
This memorial card was distributed Wednesday during calling hours for homicide victims Terry and Darleen Anderson of Mongo. Photo contributed.
Wednesday as the family and friends of homicide victims Terry and Darleen Anderson gathered to bid them goodbye.
Funeral services are today for the Mongo couple who were found dead on their property Friday. Police still have no suspects in the case.
Terry and Darleen Anderson are gone, but their spirits were very much present at Wednesday’s calling, where treasured memories were shared aloud, hugs were plentiful, tears were wiped away, laughter occasionally bubbled up and, most importantly, love lived on.
“We’re going to make their dreams our dreams,” said the couple’s daughter, Amanda, affirming that the family would be keeping the home where her parents died. “Dad wanted a full wrap-around porch, to tear down the barn, new siding. There’s electrical work to do. Mom wanted new curtains, new furniture.
“We just need a security system.”
Twenty-year-old Amanda Anderson sat on a sofa near her parents’ caskets Wednesday, surrounded by close friends and family members. The dark shadows under her eyes testifying to how little sleep she’s had in the past few days, Amanda Anderson was still in shock but she spoke bravely about her parents.
Topwater Terry
Terry Anderson had a tattoo of a muskie on his arm and a love for hunting in his heart. Many of the memories people shared about him Wednesday involved animals, both pets and prey. He was nicknamed Topwater Terry in connection with his passion for muskie fishing.
“Dad loved the outdoors, hunting and fishing,” Amanda Anderson said. “He was a muskie guy, and he would ice fish constantly in the winter.
“He was proud of his boat, and
his truck was his pride and joy. He loved his children and his grandchildren. He was a hard worker.”
When asked if she used to go fishing with her dad, Amanda was quick to smile. “Not very much because he would scream and yell, but if anybody ever needed anything, he would make sure you had it. If you needed money for lunch or if you needed advice ... he would give it.”
Terry and his friends called themselves The Brothers of the Woods, and Terry also went by the nickname The Norwegian Monkey Man from Mongo, said his best friend, Bill Gage.
“Terry’s most famous in Mongo for his iron skillet. It’s never been washed! He made the best deer meat in the whole state, maybe the whole country in that,” Gage said. “We lived on hazelnuts or filberts and deer meat all winter.”
Gage also shared a memory of Terry that involved his old pet pig, Oink Johnson, which he said grew into the biggest pig he’d ever seen.
“He’d try to ride Oink Johnson,” Gage said, laughing. “When the pig got hungry, it would get noisy, and Terry would say, ‘Shut up, Oink Johnson! I’ll feed you when I’m ready.’ That pig was as big as a cow. Its pork chops looked like T-bone steaks.”
Terry was also a famous turkey hunter, Gage said. “He would get his turkey in 10 minutes. Everybody in town was jealous of that. I would hunt all day without getting one.”
Terry’s barn was bigger than his house and included a large storage area, a tool shed and workroom and his hunting cabin. “Every time he got an extra $500, $600, he’d call the Amish men. ‘I want to build on. Frame it up,’” Gage said.
Rick and Misty Jo Kwiek of California, Terry’s oldest son and his wife, said Terry taught his grandsons how to fish and used to secretly slip them gold dollars when their parents weren’t looking. Terry often took Rick out fishing when he visited Indiana.
“I remember going to Cree Lake,” Kwiek said. “He got in the boat, and he wanted me to back up the boat. Well, I’m from Chicago. I’m lucky if I can drive my own car. He was yelling, ‘No, not that way! More right, more left!’ Normally, he was mellow, but ...”
Terry was a tree trimmer for Asplundh. His co-worker, and Amanda Anderson’s boyfriend, Quae Proctor, has many fond memories of him, including watching Terry ride around his yard on a lawnmower, poking at pesky moles with a pitchfork.
Another time, the two men worked together to cut off the top 8 feet of a tree that was full of honey bees.
“The boss wanted the bees dropped in the driveway to get it down quick, but Terry wouldn’t do it. He screened up the holes so the bees couldn’t get out, and he insisted on having those honey bees relocated to some other area,” Proctor said. “There was 50-60 pounds of honey in the log. There was so much, it was seeping out the pores of the wood.”
“He drove those bees from Syracuse all the way to Mongo,” Amanda Anderson said, adding that Terry gave the log to a beekeeper friend of his.
Shop ‘til you drop Darleen
Darleen Anderson’s proclivity for shopping was one of her defining characteristics, according to friends and family. “Mom loved garage sale-ing,” Amanda Anderson said fondly. “She used to bring home a lot of junk.”
“She could outshop us all, and Terry could outfish all us guys,” Proctor said.
“Every time we came from California, she would take us to Shipshewana, and we were at the flea markets and garage sales,” Misty Jo Kwiek said. “We wouldn’t get home until after dark because she wouldn’t quit. It was always, ‘Just one more garage sale!’
“She’d know we were coming, and she’d start hitting the garage sales for toys for the grandkids ... The boys loved their grandma.”
Darleen also passed down her skill at playing the piano to her daughter, and she collected rocks of all kinds. She bought from dealers and often reminded Proctor and her husband to keep their eyes open for interesting rocks in the cornfields. “We always brought something back for her,” Proctor said.
With her collections and her shopping habit, Darleen’s house is packed to the rafters with stuff, according to her daughter-in-law.
“She was a pack rat. The house was hers to fill up, and the shop was his, and oh my gosh is it full!” Misty Jo Kwiek said. “It will have to be sorted out, and I started looking at it, but I just couldn’t do anything yet. I felt like I was invading their privacy.”
Terry was a bit of a shopper too, and Darleen used to scold him for his extravagant purchases — unless he brought her something too, Amanda Anderson said.
“He’d always buy things and hide them from her. Then she’d find them,” Amanda said. “The day we got a new four-wheeler and a new dirt bike and pulled in the driveway with them, she was so mad.”
“I remember when he bought something really expensive (for himself), and he went out and bought her all new furniture so it would be OK,” Gage said