Adeline Parmelee

Addie (Hanson) Parmelee was born as one of eight children to Jens and Bertha (Skeslien) Hanson on January 12, 1922 on the family homestead in Langhie Township, Pope County.

The granddaughter of Norwegian immigrants, Addie first spoke Norwegian and didn’t begin learning English until entering the Pope County School District. She was an excellent student with a keen interest for subjects that allowed her imagination of distant places to soar. She was the Salutatorian of her graduating class in 1940.

Addie was 19 when Pearl Harbor was attacked and she responded by joining the U.S. Marine Corps. Following graduation from the Marine’s Radio Service School, she served on the west coast (primarily at the shipyards in Bremerton, Washington) assisting with the provisioning of ships taking supplies to Marines serving in the South Pacific.

Following the war and her honorable discharge from the service, Addie stayed on the west coast, eventually making her way to the Bay Area of California where she met her husband-to-be, Glenn C. Parmelee. She spoke often and fondly of their courtship in the romantic embrace of San Francisco. She interrupted her time in California to return to Minnesota where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. Addie then returned to California and married Glenn in 1950. She gave birth to their son, Steven, in 1953 in San Francisco.

Addie held a number of positions but eventually settled in as a legal secretary where her excellent typing, shorthand, and organizational skills served her well. Glenn went to law school and when he passed the California bar examination, Addie and Glenn moved to Salinas, California and together opened a private law practice with Glenn as the attorney and Addie doing everything else (including sometimes, according to Glenn, the “attorney” job as well). While living in Salinas Addie greatly enjoyed the proximity of her sister Bernice and her brother Julian and their families – there probably weren’t too many other family get-togethers in Salinas that featured lutefisk and lefse!

Around 1967 Addie and her family moved to San Jose where her husband joined a legal practice and Addie assumed a new role – homemaker. During the next few years she enjoyed flower gardening, sewing, cooking, attending dog shows (where they entered their beloved German Shepherd Julie into various obedience trials), and, as always, reading. In 1972 her husband was sworn in as a Federal Administrative Law Judge and they spent the next couple of decades living in Des Moines, Iowa, Charlotte, N.C., and Overland Park, Kans. as Glenn’s assignments moved them from place to place.

Addie was delighted to attend their son’s marriage in 1975 to Nancy Walker in Wisconsin and her grandchildren (Katie, born 1977 and Tom, born 1982) were a never-ending source of joy, pride, and interest to her.

Addie enjoyed exploring new surroundings and she particularly enjoyed assisting Glenn with his photography hobby; visiting local spots to find worthy photographic subjects and then assisting with the chemicals used to develop and print their pictures at home. Although this often involved carrying various sloshing liquids up and down stairs between the kitchen (where she mixed everything) and the basement darkroom, she always proud-ly noted that she never spilled a drop!

In the latter portion of their retirement years, Addie and Glenn moved from Kansas back to Starbuck. Here, she reveled in the opportunity to reconnect again on a regular basis with her local extended family and in particular her brother Leland Hanson and his family.

Descriptive adjectives for Addie come easily to mind: independent, intelligent, curious, loyal, patriotic, faithful, private, opinionated, very-well read, history buff, optimistic, and oh so practical. She was also famous with her grandchildren for her lefsa and fudge! And she loved to talk and exchange views and news with friends and family in person, in correspondence, by phone, and even by email (this included considerable correspondence with various relatives in Norway in her native tongue). Addie also greatly enjoyed genealogy and discovering as much as she could about both the Hanson and the Parmelee sides of the family.

She was a very strong part of many people’s lives and she will be sorely missed.

Addie passed away on January 14, at St. Cloud Hospital having reached the age of 87 years and two days. She is survived by her one child Steven Glen Par-melee (of Illinois) and her “perfect” (according to Addie) daughter-in-law Nancy along with her two grandchildren Kathleen Jean Parmelee (of Wyoming) and Thomas Steven Parmelee (of Illinois) and granddaughter-in-law Bianca (Nahrstedt) Parmelee. Also surviving is one sister Irene (Hanson) Klingler of Oregon, three sisters-in-law Verna Harris and Tina Hanson of California, and Genevieve Hanson of Starbuck;  and numerous nephews, nieces, and cousins.

She is preceded in death by her parents, husband (2004), one sister, Bernice(“Bunny”), and five brothers (Harris, Julian, Lloyd, Howard, and Leland). Addie’s remains are to be laid to rest with her husband’s at the East Zion Lutheran Church with a memorial service to be scheduled for early this coming spring