SHARON LEA ANDERSON

Sharon Lea Anderson, 62, passed away peacefully in her home in Oberon on June 6th, 2011. Visitation for Sharon will be held at Gilbertson Funeral Home in Devils Lake on Thursday, June 9th from 5pm to 8pm with a service to begin at 7pm. Pastor Paul Young and Pastor Robert Greywater Jr. will officiate. Funeral services will be held at the Ft. Totten Recreation Center on Friday at 11a.m. and burial at Hillside Cemetery in Oberon to follow. Serving as casket bearers for Sharon will be Brent Putnam, Trent Anderson, John Waanatan, Wyatt Carter, Michael Pacheco, Michael Adams, Lane Goodsoldier, Rodney Aguilar, Titus Anderson, William Cavanaugh Jr. and Bradley Larson. Honorary casket bearers are all her brothers-in-laws and her many nieces and nephews and Lane Adams Sr. Sharon was born in Devils Lake to John and Delores (Hedine) Anderson on June 27th, 1949. She was the second child born to a family of 11 children. Sharon grew up in the Devils Lake region and attended school at the Little Flower School in St. Michael. Sharon married Lawrence Schweitzer in Lead, SD on February 11th, 1967. They had four children from the marriage, Lawrence Jr., Joleen, Jodie and Crystal. Lawrence died in 1980. Sharon has worked many jobs in her life. As a teen she worked at the Two Spot Café in Devils Lake. Later she would work in factories, motels and other service industries across North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Some of the places she worked in the Lake Region area were, Sioux Manufacturing, Spirit Lake Casino and Flagging on the roads in the Lake Region during the floods in the late ninety’s. Sharon was an avid hunter and fisherman in her younger years where she hunted elk and whitetail deer in the mountains of Montana. She was also known as a champion for all domesticated animals. In her lifetime she owned different animals from dogs and cats to guinea pigs and bantam chickens. There wasn’t an animal that found its way to Sharon who didn’t live out its life in love and happiness. Just recently she entertained the idea of adopting a llama but was dissuaded. She was most proud of her dogs and at the time of her death she owned seven of them. Sharon loved working in the yard and planting trees. She would plant new flowers every year and worked from sun up to sun down in her yard, sometimes with only a flashlight to see by. For the past five summers Sharon had a special garden in her yard for two of her nieces to put together and take care of. She also liked to take them to rummages every summer and see what they could find. Sharon was also well know in the area secondhand stores for her love of Beanie Babies, which she had collected for the past fifteen years. Sharon was a good listener and strong woman. She helped anyone she saw was in need regardless of her hardship. She could always be counted by all who knew her. Sharon loved in a unique kind of way that became what she was known for. In her later years, she became ill and was homebound most of the time. She still found a way to go visit friends and relatives in addition to attending community functions sometimes staying all night long for support. She looked forward to reading her daily newspapers and whenever she could get all of them together she made a day of it just reading the day away. Her favorite paper was the Benson County Press, coming in a close second was the Devils Lake Journal. Sharon also love to read her bible and in the last few years, as her eyes got worse she listened to tapes of the bible being read. Her faith was so strong and she was in love with her Lord and Savior Jesus. Sharon is preceded in death by her parents John and Delores Anderson; husband Lawrence; son Lawrence Schweitzer Jr; sisters Tracy Anderson and Sherry Anderson; grandson Jimmy Burmeister, nieces and nephew Aimee Anderson, Heidi Jo Anderson, the Aguilar Twins, Baby Melody Anderson, Chris Cavanaugh and many other beloved family members. Survivors include her children, Joleen Burmeister, Jodie Schweitzer and Crystal Schweitzer all of Grand Forks, ND; ten grandchildren; sisters and brothers, Patricia Anderson, John (Lila) Anderson, Debra (William) Cavanaugh, Melody (John) Christianson, Chris (Carol) Anderson, Loreen Anderson, Lorena (Robert) Skaro and Blaine Anderson; adopted sisters Jane Lamrose, Elaine Robertson, Tammy Putnam and Sandra Miller; special nieces Sharene Harrison, Brandy Popelka and Reeba Hegg-Mack and special nephew Brent Putnam and many other nieces and nephews.