Antonsens to highlight this year’s Looney Days parade

By Robert Williams

Editor

The 2024 Looney Days Grand Marshals, David and Sandy Antonsen, are lifelong, rural Vergas residents and have known each other their entire lives, including 58 years of marriage.  ¶  “Even though she’s much younger,” David laughed.  ¶  “Oh baloney, like three-and-a-half years,” said Sandy.  ¶  Both grew up on Sybil Lake, living across the lake from each other and attended country school together.  ¶  “Back in those days you knew everybody and helped and worked with everybody,” said Sandy.  ¶  The two met in the thrashing days and worked together in the fields.  ¶  “She’d get out of doing dishes and come over and drive tractor for me,” said David.  ¶  Both families farmed and David’s family also had a well drilling business.  ¶  Country school was attended until eighth grade in those days, and both David and Sandy moved on to Perham high school. Sandy was in one of the last classes to go all eight years. The school dropped its curriculum to just six years thereafter.   ¶  David graduated from PHS in 1961; Sandy received her diploma in 1965.  ¶  The transition from country school to Perham was not without its difficulties.  ¶  “For me, it was really tough,” said David. “We were so country; we just never went anywhere. Then you go into where there are 100 kids in your class and it was quite a change.”

At the country school, David came from a class of four students and all the grades added up to approximately 20 kids in all grades.

“It was quite a switch from being out there,” said Sandy.

David certainly was country and he made a trip into town (Vergas) maybe once a month growing up. Sandy used to tag along with her father to drop milk off at the Creamery and the family went to weekly church on Sundays.

Living the farm life provided much of what the families needed to live.

“We made our own bread; we had eggs and we butchered and had our own milk, and we had our own garden so mom canned—we didn’t need much,” Sandy said.

“Sugar, flour and tobacco,” David snickered. “We very seldom went to town and we never had anything to spend anyway.”

After graduation, David moved to Jamestown for work and had to sign up for the service during the draft era. He was active in the military for six months and six months in the reserves.

“We got as close as to a selected reserves force in Detroit Lakes, so it was like getting close, but for some reason they said your unit doesn’t need to go,” said David. “We didn’t argue about it.”

Sandy was employed as a maid in Detroit Lakes, before working at the downtown Red Owl grocery store.

Romance was something that just happened over time for the couple.

“We went to prom together,” said Sandy. “Then he went out to North Dakota and I worked and then we got back together and just kind of stayed together. That’s the way it happened.”

“It’s only been 58 years,” David said.

In 1966, the two were married and Sandy worked at Star Drug in Frazee for 85 cents per hour. She moved on to work for Donnie Peterson of Peterson Grocery in Vergas, the precursor to Hoffman’s.

“We sold dry goods, material, and clothes, you name it back in those days,” Sandy said.

In 1970, the couple’s first child Michelle was born and Sandy stayed home but worked as a secretary of the family’s well drilling company. A second daughter Jolyn joined the family. Both women live in Minnesota, Michelle in Burnsville and Jolyn in St. Cloud.

During their ownership of the well drilling business, they acquired the old school grounds and turned the country school building into a garage and built a home there in 1978.

The Antonsens purchased their current home, a charming and beautiful 160-acre farm at the end of 430th Street, in 1992 and moved there permanently in 1999 after selling the well drilling business a year prior.

“This property came up once for sale in our lifetime,” David said. “We thought, if we don’t take it we’ll never get it.”

Their farm is destined for the Minnesota Land Trust, a state-wide environmental protection and conservation non-profit that has been working with landowners and local communities since 1991 to protect and enhance Minnesota’s increasingly threatened lands and waters.

A forever easement will prohibit anymore buildings or development on the property.

“We just felt it was too nice of a property and we feel there has to be something left,” David said. “The pasture can never be pastured again.”

The Antonsens have rented out their pasture to pay the property taxes, but that ends after this year. The couple want to keep the land in its pristine, natural state and have avoided any temptations to sell to potential developers.

“Everywhere you go there are storage buildings going up,” said Sandy. “We’ve had a lot of people come in here and asking to buy this place. Some wanted it for storage sheds, some wanted it for a gravel pit. No, thank you.”

The couple also had the foresight to build their home on the property handicapped accessible and plan to stay there as long as they can.

During that time, both David and Sandy have been members of the Vergas Lions, not charter members but very close.

“We’re about the only ones left in there from the original bunch,” Sandy said. 

The Lions Club just volunteered at WE Fest cleaning all the VIP seats, blowing out the VIP section and cleaning all the bathrooms and bar areas.

The Antonsens were notified by Community Club President Sherri Hanson that they were to be this year’s Grand Marshals of the Looney Days and the parade.

“I was real excited,” said Sandy. “Being from Vergas.”

“I was kind of shocked when Sherri called; I didn’t expect her to call about that,” David said.

Sandy has a unique relationship with Hanson.

“I used to babysit Sherri,” she laughed.

The Antonsens have been service providers to people near and far from Vergas.

The couple traveled to Poland for weeks on a church mission and at Ysleta Mission in El Paso, Texas, where they worked across the board in Juarez, Mexico building houses for those in need. David has made a total of three trips there.

“The people were always happy and so thankful,” said Sandy.

Among David’s other distinctions were: being President of the Minnesota Water Well Association 1992-93 and on the Board of Directors for 15 years; he served 20 years as a Dora Township Supervisor and was on the Minnesota Department of Health Advisory Committee; he was one of 11 members of the Vergas Investment Club that developed the property that became the Vergas Assisted Living.

In part, the group was the economic development authority of its day but with no government assistance.

“That was economically developed with personal funds; we struggled through it and borrowed a lot of money and were able to sell a few lots and recover our investment to a point,” he said. “We never got rich, but I think we got 15 lots on the lake and some back lots so it was quite a development.”

Three acres were saved for the Vergas Assisted Living center and a group of 25 investors formed a corporation to begin the project. David spearheaded the project with former Vergas State Bank Chairman Gordon Dahlgren.

“It’s been a great asset to the community,” David said.

The Vergas Assisted Living center is still a big part of both David and Sandy’s lives and really shows what kind and giving people they are. 

When David quit working in the well drilling business, he immediately went to work at Vergas Assisted Living as a driver.

“Best three years of my life,” he said. “I enjoyed those people and you do little things for them and they just think it’s the greatest thing.”

At the conclusion of this interview, Sandy was preparing to go call bingo and paint fingernails at Vergas Assisted Living.

“I just love those people,” she said.

Keep an eye out for the Antonsens in the Looney Days parade as they have a surprise ride to escort them through town, going a different direction from the typical convertible automobile.