thedrifter
03-18-07, 09:17 AM
Markswoman drew bead on life
Sunday, March 18, 2007
AMY MARTINEZ STARKE
The Oregonian
E arly in life, Peggy Anderson, a red-haired fireball, decided that a quiet life at home was not for her. She wanted to see the world.
The daughter of a well-to-do Spokane businessman, she grew up a sportswoman with thoroughbred horses. She hunted pheasant with her father and two brothers and developed a talent for art.
She hoped to go to art school, but her father told her she could go to college only if she studied home economics.
When World War II came the next year, her friends encouraged her to join the military.
She refused, until the Marine Corps started taking women. When that happened in 1943, she immediately enlisted.
Her father was furious. But Peggy was 21 and left for boot camp, taking her own rifle. Soon the Marine Corps noticed how well she handled a .22, .38, and .45 on the shooting range.
Competing mostly against men, she went on to win shooting championships and trained officers while stationed at Quantico, Va. Her dad, who soon became proud of her, died in 1945, and they made Peggy quit the Marines to take care of her mother.
Back in Spokane, she was soon working at the airport and taking flying lessons in a Piper Cub on the side.
"I'm always up for a good challenge," she would say, indulging her unlimited desire to do new things.
Later, congestive heart failure and emphysema didn't stop her. It was difficult when she had to move from her 20-acre farm in Sandy, where she lived alone.
Longtime Clackamas County residents might remember Peggy, who died Feb. 21, 2007, at 85, as the woman who hauled around two Rottweilers in her gray Toyota pickup, both dogs bigger than she was.
Peggy's Portland-area roots go back to the early part of the 20th century, when she spent summers at a relative's Troutdale farm.
After the war started, Peggy became Spokane's mystery Victory Bond Girl in 1942. The Spokane Daily News ran pictures of her eyes and other body parts as clues, and the first person to guess her identity won a $100 bond.
After her Marine Corps service, she married her first husband, Al Pricco in 1946. They lived in Florida for a year, where she continued to compete at shooting.
Her first child was born in 1947, and her second in 1949 -- the same year the couple divorced.
She moved to Troutdale to join relatives in early 1950, and then married Dale Parsons, whom she had known from those lazy childhood summers in Troutdale. Dale worked as a mechanic at a car dealership. Then came a daughter, and a set of boy-girl twins.
When her two youngest were in school, Peggy worked at Gresham Community Hospital, at a nursing home as a cook, at Troutdale Grade School as a secretary. Then, because of her art talents, she was hired as a graphic artist at ESD of Multnomah County and later ran the print department until 1985. She also co-owned a print shop with her daughter and once worked for the Oregon Candy Farm.
Peggy was game for everything. She was a seamstress, learned to upholster, took self-defense classes and golfed. She went salmon fishing with a ladies club in Troutdale. She tried weaving. learned photography and developed her own film. She took culinary classes and baked her own bread. She tried bonsai, put in ponds on her place, and built a rock garden.
The family moved to a farm in Sandy in 1970. The couple sold off 25 of their 45 acres in 1976. It became a conifer nursery, where she worked part time. After husband Dale died in 1978, she lived in a cedar house she built on the remaining acreage across the road from Roslyn Lake.
She went kayaking down the Salmon River and paddled her own kayak in her 60s.
She imagined herself sky diving, and got a trip for a birthday gift. At 74, she sky-dived solo on a static line.
She warned her grown children, "Now, I'm not a baby sitter." But once grandchildren arrived, she was there for them.
A keeper of horses, cows, chickens, geese and turkeys on her farm, she had an open-door policy for strays, humans or animals. Or plants her nurseryman neighbors were throwing away.
She helped out at a kennel, where she fell in love with Rottweilers. She acquired Haika and Sheba, mother and daughter, for company and security.
But mostly, she couldn't get enough of traveling the world, alone or with others. The travel bug started with an art trip to Mexico.
There were two trips to China. She visited India, and hiked for 10 days in Nepal, in the Himalayas with sherpas. She rode an elephant in Thailand. On a trip to Spain and Morocco, she rode a camel. She took a monthlong Australian cruise, visiting Malaysia, Singapore and Bali. She took a Volga River cruise in Russia.
She went to Maui in 2002. That was her last trip. But she dreamed of more travel.
Give her a choice of traveling or paying her bills, she'd pick travel any day. There was still a long list of places she hadn't been. She was saving Europe's "easy countries" for when she was old.
"And on my next birthday," she declared, "I'm going to sky-dive again. And you're not going to stop me."
And who were you to tell her no?
Amy Martinez Starke: 503-221-8534; amystarke@news.oregonian.com
Ellie
Sunday, March 18, 2007
AMY MARTINEZ STARKE
The Oregonian
E arly in life, Peggy Anderson, a red-haired fireball, decided that a quiet life at home was not for her. She wanted to see the world.
The daughter of a well-to-do Spokane businessman, she grew up a sportswoman with thoroughbred horses. She hunted pheasant with her father and two brothers and developed a talent for art.
She hoped to go to art school, but her father told her she could go to college only if she studied home economics.
When World War II came the next year, her friends encouraged her to join the military.
She refused, until the Marine Corps started taking women. When that happened in 1943, she immediately enlisted.
Her father was furious. But Peggy was 21 and left for boot camp, taking her own rifle. Soon the Marine Corps noticed how well she handled a .22, .38, and .45 on the shooting range.
Competing mostly against men, she went on to win shooting championships and trained officers while stationed at Quantico, Va. Her dad, who soon became proud of her, died in 1945, and they made Peggy quit the Marines to take care of her mother.
Back in Spokane, she was soon working at the airport and taking flying lessons in a Piper Cub on the side.
"I'm always up for a good challenge," she would say, indulging her unlimited desire to do new things.
Later, congestive heart failure and emphysema didn't stop her. It was difficult when she had to move from her 20-acre farm in Sandy, where she lived alone.
Longtime Clackamas County residents might remember Peggy, who died Feb. 21, 2007, at 85, as the woman who hauled around two Rottweilers in her gray Toyota pickup, both dogs bigger than she was.
Peggy's Portland-area roots go back to the early part of the 20th century, when she spent summers at a relative's Troutdale farm.
After the war started, Peggy became Spokane's mystery Victory Bond Girl in 1942. The Spokane Daily News ran pictures of her eyes and other body parts as clues, and the first person to guess her identity won a $100 bond.
After her Marine Corps service, she married her first husband, Al Pricco in 1946. They lived in Florida for a year, where she continued to compete at shooting.
Her first child was born in 1947, and her second in 1949 -- the same year the couple divorced.
She moved to Troutdale to join relatives in early 1950, and then married Dale Parsons, whom she had known from those lazy childhood summers in Troutdale. Dale worked as a mechanic at a car dealership. Then came a daughter, and a set of boy-girl twins.
When her two youngest were in school, Peggy worked at Gresham Community Hospital, at a nursing home as a cook, at Troutdale Grade School as a secretary. Then, because of her art talents, she was hired as a graphic artist at ESD of Multnomah County and later ran the print department until 1985. She also co-owned a print shop with her daughter and once worked for the Oregon Candy Farm.
Peggy was game for everything. She was a seamstress, learned to upholster, took self-defense classes and golfed. She went salmon fishing with a ladies club in Troutdale. She tried weaving. learned photography and developed her own film. She took culinary classes and baked her own bread. She tried bonsai, put in ponds on her place, and built a rock garden.
The family moved to a farm in Sandy in 1970. The couple sold off 25 of their 45 acres in 1976. It became a conifer nursery, where she worked part time. After husband Dale died in 1978, she lived in a cedar house she built on the remaining acreage across the road from Roslyn Lake.
She went kayaking down the Salmon River and paddled her own kayak in her 60s.
She imagined herself sky diving, and got a trip for a birthday gift. At 74, she sky-dived solo on a static line.
She warned her grown children, "Now, I'm not a baby sitter." But once grandchildren arrived, she was there for them.
A keeper of horses, cows, chickens, geese and turkeys on her farm, she had an open-door policy for strays, humans or animals. Or plants her nurseryman neighbors were throwing away.
She helped out at a kennel, where she fell in love with Rottweilers. She acquired Haika and Sheba, mother and daughter, for company and security.
But mostly, she couldn't get enough of traveling the world, alone or with others. The travel bug started with an art trip to Mexico.
There were two trips to China. She visited India, and hiked for 10 days in Nepal, in the Himalayas with sherpas. She rode an elephant in Thailand. On a trip to Spain and Morocco, she rode a camel. She took a monthlong Australian cruise, visiting Malaysia, Singapore and Bali. She took a Volga River cruise in Russia.
She went to Maui in 2002. That was her last trip. But she dreamed of more travel.
Give her a choice of traveling or paying her bills, she'd pick travel any day. There was still a long list of places she hadn't been. She was saving Europe's "easy countries" for when she was old.
"And on my next birthday," she declared, "I'm going to sky-dive again. And you're not going to stop me."
And who were you to tell her no?
Amy Martinez Starke: 503-221-8534; amystarke@news.oregonian.com
Ellie