Margaret Sanstad

May 20, 1923 — Jan. 29, 2015

Margaret Edna Holtz was born on the Smith farm, about 10 miles east of Ismay, Mont., May 20, 1923, the second of four children of Elsie and Clark Holtz. The family moved to their own homestead, on Pennel Creek, again farming, in 1930, where her brother Donald was born that same year. It wasn’t long, however, before drought one year and then grasshoppers the next destroyed what little crops they could produce, and they lost the farm. The bank allowed the family to stay on for a few years, but eventually they moved again, in 1941, to the Hamilton Ranch, not far from Ismay, with Margaret’s father Clark taking a job with the WPA (Works Progress Administration), building roads with a team of horses before he finally got into drilling for water and, later, oil.

Ismay was a very small town in southeastern Montana, and Margaret grew up riding her horse, Billy, with her brother, Robert, three miles to school each day. The horse and their dog would wait outside the schoolhouse for the kids to head home. They had no electricity, and it was the daughters who had the job of hauling all their water by hand from the wind-driven well. The kids grew up strong and resilient, Margaret describing them years later as “scrappy.”

Upon graduation, Margaret gathered up her “best buddy,” Dolphine, and moved across the state to attend Billings Business College. Although she had received a scholarship to Eastern Montana Normal School (a teacher’s college), she chose the business program because it was only nine months long and she was very anxious to “get on with my life!” This move away from home was only allowed by her mom by including her grandparents, who agreed to go to Billings to watch over the young women. Margaret’s report card from Winter Quarter 1942 at the college shows excellent marks, all A’s and B’s.

Once completing this training, the women were on their own, moving to Butte, Mont., where they found work and an apartment. They also “temporarily” took up smoking and drinking, excited to be free. It was on the way to her job one morning, while stopping at a cafe for breakfast, that Margaret met a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter. Thrilled at the opportunity to leave Montana, and not seeing much of a future in Butte, she enlisted on the spot. It was Sept. 9, 1943, and her dad told her she was going to be a “seagoing bellhop”!

The US Marine Corps has very high standards for entry, perhaps even more robust in the 1940s. Margaret’s speedy admission speaks highly of not only her substantial mental acuity, but also of her tough upbringing and strong physical capabilities.

Margaret left Montana for the first time, traveling with Dolphine, who had also signed up, by train for basic training at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, at Jacksonville, S.C., where she had her first view of the Atlantic Ocean. After several months, she shipped out to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, near Irvine, Orange County, Calif. The long train ride across country was, for Margaret, a “total adventure, sitting up all night with guys and girls in a February winter to arrive slowly, winding through sunny Southern California orange groves to the Pacific Ocean. It was a thrill!”

Margaret was promoted quickly, becoming a sergeant and going to work as secretary to the Public Works officer of the base.

Margaret also met Gordon Sanstad, from Minnesota, at the base, where her assignment included overseeing a pool of woman marines as clerks for Gordon, the sergeant major for the facility. They were introduced by a mutual friend, and even though Margaret already had a boyfriend, Gordon was considered by her friend as “a good catch and would be a great father.”

After several lively months of courtship, they married on Feb. 24, 1945, renting a little bungalow off-base and on the ocean in the town of Laguna Beach, a lovely time they both spoke of fondly for years. Margaret was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps May 20, 1945, her 22nd birthday.

After the war, Margaret and Gordon hopped the train north, to the University of Oregon in Eugene, where they intended on enrolling. But the new veterans’ housing was not yet completed, so they took time to travel east to see their families in Montana and Minnesota, eventually returning to the coast and this time heading further north to Bellingham, Wash., where they enrolled together at Western Washington College in the summer of 1946. It was while living in the newly created Seahome Vets’ Housing, “the projects,” in Bellingham, that their first two children were born, Bernita Marie, in 1947, and Gordon Jr. in 1949. They made friends with other young families then in school and living in the projects, creating bonds they maintained for years, often taking family road trips with their kids around the state to stay in touch. Years later Margaret remembered this as “a great time” of her life.

Upon graduation in 1951, the family moved to Ballard, in Seattle, where Gordon had found employment. It was in their little rental house on Northwest 57th Street and 20th Avenue Northwest that Margaret again displayed her enthusiasm and independence, painting their porch purple and the front door a bright pink, generating considerable talk in the neighborhood. From then on, purple remained Margaret’s favorite color.

As Gordon’s career advanced, the family purchased their first home in the Seattle neighborhood of Wallingford, where their third and final child, Alan Haldor, was born in 1955. At the time Seattle hosted its World’s Fair, Century 21, in 1961, Interstate 5 was also created, scooping up their sleepy Wallingford street to become an access road for the freeway, so they moved again, this time to the Ravenna area.

Margaret was a wonderful and dedicated homemaker and mother, loving her family mightily, but she had never really given up the idea of pursuing her own career, despite leaving her studies at Western early to care for the children.

Margaret and Gordon (by then known as Sandy) had been introduced to the Unitarian Church while in Bellingham, and Margaret led her family into this faith in Seattle, a spiritual path she continued her entire life. The church presented her the next opportunity to serve, and, over the years, she began teaching children’s classes, going on to become not only the University Unitarian Church’s Religious Education director, but also serving on the new building and ministerial hiring committees, displaying her gifts of organization, enthusiasm and leadership.

Margaret’s gifts were also evident right next door to the church, where she was next recruited, this time as a preschool teacher at the newly formed Little School, an innovative early child education program developed by Eleanor Siegel. Margaret spent three years at the Little School and then returned to college, completing her BA in Elementary Education in 1965. Armed with her teaching certificate, she went to work teaching for the Seattle Public Schools, at Coleman and Horace Mann Elementary schools, in Seattle’s Central District.

Next, in 1967, Margaret was invited to create a full-day Head Start program for Neighborhood House in Seattle. Under her guidance, for the following three years this program became nationally recognized and was used as a demonstration by state agencies, colleges and universities, being featured as a model program at the 1970 White House Conference for Children.

By this time, recognized as a leading innovator in early child development, Margaret was asked to be, on contract, a community organizer for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where she traveled around region X (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska), setting up local day care programs. When President Nixon vetoed this program (“communizing our children”), she became a child development program specialist for the Office of Child Development, Department of Health and Human Services, and spent the following 17 years as a “fed,” providing “technical assistance and consultation to state and local governments, private agencies and citizens groups concerned with the development of planning, coordinating and evaluating processes for services to children and families.” As Margaret said later, these were “heady times.”

Margaret went on to hold a variety of jobs in child and family services with training contracts at colleges and universities around the region, while still finding time to enroll at the UW School of Social Work, receiving her master’s in social work in 1975.

Margaret and Sandy’s marriage drew to a close in 1969, by which time Bernita and Gordon Jr. were out on their own. Margaret continued her life of service to all, helping to form the Children’s Alliance, a group she stayed close with for the rest of her life. She served on the boards of many organizations, including the National Association for Education of Young Children, Washington Association for Social Welfare, Northwest Family Training Institute, the Martin Luther King Jr. Child Care Center, the Child Welfare League, the National Coalition for Children and Youth, the Seattle-King County 4-C Committee, the National Association of State Directors of Child Development, the Oregon Citizens for Children, to name but some. She was active in human rights, children’s rights, civil rights, a lifelong champion of the less-fortunate.

On Oct. 7, 1992, Margaret received a proclamation from Washington governor Booth Gardner: “To Margaret Sanstad, an outstanding woman, devoted mother, grandmother, co-worker and friend and advocate for children for over 20 years.”

Retiring at age 70 in 1993, Margaret continued sharing her gifts, mentoring others, continuing to meet new friends and loving all the friends and associates from over her many years of service. Countless individuals have stayed in touch with Margaret, often seeing her as a second mom. She stayed on her spiritual quest, not only by continuing her attendance at the UUC, often with grandson Cody and, on special occasions, great-grandson Charley, but also through her interest in Buddhism, joining several groups to continue meeting practitioners and preparing for her old age. She became a hospice volunteer and supported homeless programs, even staying overnight with homeless women at the Church of Mary Magdalene Center. Margaret was a great philanthropist, supporting countless causes and charities over the years.

And she has been blessed with six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, with whom she spent many happy hours. In her last year of life, she moved to Whidbey Island, to her son Gordon’s home, where she could stay closely in touch with daughter Bernita (next door to Gordon) and many of her great family brood. A truly loving and giving individual, she will be remembered by many, friends and family alike, for the great light she cast over her world.

Margaret is survived by her brother, Donald Holtz, of Miles City, Mont., and by her children, Bernita Sanstad (Bob French), Bernita’s daughter Solina Sotelo (Wences), and her children Marisol, Cruz and Daen; Bernita’s son Cody Bower (Anna Hall), their son Charley and Cody’s step-daughter Ciella Holmes; son Gordon Sanstad and his children, Miles and Simonne Nootenboom (Brandon); and son Alan Sanstad and his children, Isaac and Aaron. Also loved as though her own: Chuck Bower, Katherine Sanstad, Claudia Smith, Christi Shaffer and Jennifer Boyes-Manseau.

Margaret also out-lived all her pals within the UUC, in the Birthday Girls and Gourmet Girls, two fun groups she initiated and gathered with regularly for over 40 years.

Margaret’s family would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the wonderful staff members at both Careage of Whidbey and Whidbey General Hospital. The high level of care, compassion and good humor displayed daily by these great folks helped a difficult situation go a little easier for us all.

A celebration of Margaret’s life will be held 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Feb., 21, at the University Unitarian Church, 6556 35th Ave. NE, 98115, in Seattle, 206-525-8400 or churchoffice@uuchurch.org.

Memorials in Margaret’s honor may be made to The Children’s Alliance, 718 6th Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98104-3819, and the University Unitarian Church, 6556 35th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98115.