Berdelle Johanna Johnson Christiansen

Berdelle Johanna Johnson Christiansen peacefully ended her life’s journey at her home in Tumwater, Washington, in the early evening of Sunday, June 20, 2021. She was 107 years, seven months and five days young. Her life was a long journey that began on the South Dakota prairie. She later also lived in Seattle and Lake Quinault, Washington, before moving in 1995 to Tumwater, where she built herself a new retirement home. She was a gift to everyone she met on her journey. Berdelle is survived by her children, Dallas Pasco (Allan), Lance Christiansen, Wendye Bren, Susan Christiansen and Sandra Brentlinger. She is also survived by her grandchildren, Gunnar Christiansen, Knut Christiansen, Solveig Christiansen, Schuyler Erwin, Teague Pasco Sanders (Mike), Brandt Pasco (Tien), Chandar Pasco Payne, Allison Bren Ferris (Dean), Austin Bren, and Cheyanne Christiansen. She also had numerous great-grandchildren. She was the longest living member of her Johnson family. Berdelle was born in a small house located on the Johnson family homestead in South Dakota, north of the Black Hills. November 16, 1913 was a cloudy, dark and dreary Sunday on the prairie. On that day, Olive Thompson Johnson gave birth to a baby girl. She was named Berdelle Johanna Johnson. Her parents were Norwegian homesteaders, and she was given these names to honor her Norwegian heritage. Berdelle’s family consisted of her mother, her father Knut, sister Sylvia and brother Kermit. Two years later, sister Irene joined the family. The family spoke Norwegian at home. Berdelle and her siblings learned to speak English after they started school. Life was very busy – crops needed to be grown and harvested, animals taken care of, water hauled, and other farm and home chores completed. The family was also very involved with church and school activities, community gatherings, and visits with friends and relatives. Berdelle’s father was a very esteemed member of the Norwegian community. He valued education and donated the land for the local school. Education was very important to Berdelle her entire life. When Berdelle was just four days past her fifth birthday, her mother died, a victim of the 1918 flu pandemic. While she was old enough to remember this event, she was too young to fully understand how it would affect her life. After her mother died, no one, not even her father, ever spoke about her again. The tragic loss of her mother was probably the most significant event in Berdelle’s life. Berdelle’s father remarried and had another son, Zane. As time went by, Berdelle and her siblings grew up. All the girls went to teacher’s college, but her brother had to drop out of grade school as he needed to work on the farm. When Berdelle was just 17, she graduated from Black Hills Teacher’s College (now Black Hills State University). You could teach with one year of college, but Berdelle went for two years. She taught in one-room schools in the area for seven years. The Depression years were difficult in the Dakotas and there were few opportunities for young people. Berdelle met a young man, Lester “Les” Christiansen from Minneapolis, at a barn dance. A three-year “letter courtship” resulted in Berdelle leaving the familiar Dakota prairies in 1937 as she and Les were married in Seattle and started their new life there. Employment opportunities were scarce and money in short supply, so they made their first home on a houseboat on Lake Union. The rent was $10.00 a month. Soon their family expanded. Dallas was born in 1938 and Lance was born in 1940. When they decided that living on the water was too dangerous with young children, they bought property in West Seattle. They spent the next four years saving money and building their home. At first, they lived in the basement and then the main floor was built. The joke was that Les had built the house so well that it was built twice! Berdelle was so proud of her home Les would tell her she was going to wear it out with all her cleaning. Les joined the Merchant Marines and attended navigation school. He was often gone for many months at a time, and Berdelle stayed at home raising the family. Eventually he was employed as chief navigator by private shipping companies and made a very good income. Wendye joined the family in 1948 and twin daughters, Susan and Sandra, joined in 1950. A third floor was added to the house with three more bedrooms. In 1956, Les was attacked in Dunkirk, France while ashore. He was 42 years old. After being attacked, he was never able to work again and, through the years, had many difficult surgeries. Berdelle went to work at Boeing and became the family’s sole breadwinner. Les’s doctors eventually told Berdelle that Les needed something in his life to give him a feeling he was contributing to their family. After hunting for a motel to buy, they found what they were looking for and bought a small motel in 1960 on Lake Quinault in the Olympic National Park. The first years at Lake Quinault were financially challenging as tourists traveled in the summer, but not in the winter. Eventually in the winters, the cabins were rented out to teachers and workers and their finances improved. Berdelle did substitute teaching and eventually became the director of the Head Start program on the Quinault Indian Reservation. She became a founding member of the Chapel by the Lake and co-founded its first home in the Quinault Lodge and then helped the church construct its own building in Neilton, Washington. Les passed away in 1976, and Berdelle continued to run the motel and teach. Berdelle was so very proud of all of her children as each graduated from college, earned their own way, and established their own homes. Berdelle was the “Lady of the Lake” and she operated the motel until 1995. Her children, with their children, visited her often and everyone learned to clean cabins or used their skills to repair and build things. In 1995, she sold the motel, and with the help of Susan and Sandra, built a home in Tumwater. Berdelle loved her new home, visits by family and friends, gardening, her pets, and her pond. She often commented on how content she was. She took many trips to visit her children and grandchildren. Trips to Hawaii, Norway, London, and Europe after the age of 80 were highlights of her life. As the years passed, her body became frail and her memory became a bit forgetful, but Berdelle never lost her interest in watching TV, reading, going to movies and restaurants, and planning for fun things to do and places to go. With some assistance, she was able to stay in her own home. Her clothes always had to be stylish, and wearing lipstick and earrings were a must. She continued as the matriarch of her family, and she loved it when her children and other family and friends came to visit. The coffee pot was always on. She always had time for a half-a-cup of coffee! When talking about her life, she often mentioned how much the world had changed during her long journey. She remembered Indian families traveling across the South Dakota prairie, riding in a buggy with her mother, the first cars and airplanes, and the arrival of electricity and the telephone. She always said the invention that had the largest impact on her life was the arrival of the radio. It brought the world into her little house on the prairie. She sometimes wondered how she managed to outlive all the members of her Johnson family. Her remaining family’s overwhelming sadness at her passing is tempered somewhat with our imagining her joy on finally being reunited with all of them, especially her mother. Many times she told her own children she had missed her mother her whole life and always felt like she had a hole in her heart. We know that hole has now been mended. We’re sure she interrupted her last journey to put on her earrings and lipstick and to pour herself a half-a-cup of coffee. On her arrival, there must have been quite a coffee klatch! Many thanks to family and friends who never forgot that Berdelle remained a vital and vibrant person no matter how old she became. You all helped her celebrate many special birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and 4th of Julys. Many thanks also to our friends who in recent years often went beyond the call of duty to help keep Berdelle and her home, yard and pond humming along. Dee, an LPN, helped her when she broke her ankle. Through the years, they traded books and stories. She always looked forward to her visits. Angela deserves a special “thank you” for helping keep her home tidy, preparing nice lunches, and during her visits, learned a lot about South Dakota. Katie for years helped with the gardening, and they would often go to Burger King for lunch. Jim painted her house inside and out several times, repaired her deck and siding, and would always have time to visit. Kathy often came to visit and mom really enjoyed her friendship. And finally, there was Drew. Drew, the jack-of-all-trades extraordinaire, kept all the electrical, plumbing and whatevers working. He and Berdelle both loved the Mariners. Drs. Cynthia Whitney and Jimmy Swan both played instrumental roles during Berdelle’s last years. Their compassionate care helped Berdelle stay in her own home, being as independent as possible to the very end. As Berdelle wished, one-half of her ashes will be interred at Mills and Mills Memorial Park in Tumwater, Washington, and the other half will be interred at Golden Valley Norwegian Lutheran Church in South Dakota. Celebrations of her life will be in spring 2022. Gifts in Berdelle’s memory may be made to Golden Valley Church Historical Preservation Foundation, c/o Kathy Johnson, 24054 Palmer Gulch Road, Hill City, SD 57745-6525. For more about Berdelle: Google Rapid City Journal and then search for Berdelle Christiansen. Then click on the title of the article - 103-year-old BHSU graduate revels in her memories. Google Youtube and Berdelle Christiansen: https://medium.com/wadepthealth/everyone-has-a-story-fdb4e24a73fb Please leave condolences or share memories and photos on the Tribute Wall to the left. --The following article was written by the Washington State Department of Health (A photo of Berdelle's mother is at the end of the photo array.) Everyone Has a Story COVID-19 is not Berdelle Christiansen’s first pandemic. When she was five years old, she and her mom and dad, her 11-year-old sister, her 9-year-old brother, and her 2-year-old sister were a few of the 500 million people who caught the 1918 flu. Berdelle and her family lived in a small wooden house in South Dakota. The three girls slept in one bedroom and shared a bed. Her brother slept on a couch in the living room. The family used coal for heat and cooking, lit oil lamps for light, and waded through snow drifts to get to their outhouse in the winter. In 1918, the whole family came down with the flu. Berdelle’s mother, Olive, took care of all of them. There were no good treatments for this flu. The little boy got very sick, and for a while, they did not think he would live. But, with rest, prayers, and his mother’s TLC he recovered. Then Berdelle’s mother came down with the flu herself, and just a couple of days later, she died. A neighbor came by and dressed Berdelle and her youngest sister in their church dresses and put them back to bed. Berdelle watched several men carrying her mother’s body out of the house. Berdelle doesn’t know if her mother had a funeral. If she did, all of the kids were still too sick to go. Today, Berdelle is 106 ½ years old, and lives in Tumwater, WA with her daughter. She told us, “My entire life I have missed my mother. I’ve always felt like I have a huge hole in my heart. I still think of her often and wonder about her.” Berdelle has hazy memories of her mother. She remembers her piano. She remembers watching her knead bread. She remembers riding in a horse-drawn buggy with her. She remembers her auburn hair and how very loving she was. Life was difficult for Berdelle and her family after her mother died. Her father developed arthritis and struggled to keep up the family farm. Her brother dropped out of grade school to help their father plant and harvest the crops and take care of the farm animals. Berdelle told us, “I learned to read, and reading sort of saved my life.” She graduated from high school and two years of teachers college, and then taught school for several years in a one-room school. “After my mother died, it was like she had never lived,” Berdelle told us. “No one, including my father, ever mentioned her name or memories of her again. I remember wondering why no one ever talked about her.” Berdelle met her husband at a barn dance. She went with him to Seattle, and they started their lives together there. Eventually, they moved to Lake Quinault, where she continued to teach school and Head Start. Berdelle and her husband had five children. She taught her kids about the 1918 flu pandemic. Sandy, at 70, is the baby of the family. She and her siblings grew up hearing stories about the pandemic and the terrible impact it had on her mother’s life. Sandy feels fortunate that she heard these stories. The 1918 pandemic was devastating for millions of families, but many families just didn’t talk about it. Sandy said, “I guess it was so terrible everyone wanted to forget about it.” Sandy told us hearing her mother’s stories helped her be more aware of the way colds and flus spread. She remembers when she was working, and one person would come in sick, and then a couple of days later someone else was sick. “You could just watch it move from person to person down the line of cubes! It was so plain!” Hardly a day goes by that Berdelle doesn’t think of her mother and the losses from the 1918 flu. Berdelle hopes that we will remember and talk about the people who died of COVID-19. “I do feel sorry for the families who have lost a loved one, especially if small children are left without a mother or father,” she said. COVID-19 is familiar territory for people who grew up with the specter of pandemic flu. Sandy told us, “One thing that absolutely astounds me is that people don’t take it seriously.” Berdelle sees her family now just from a distance. Sandy said, “We’re just trying to be so, so careful.” Practice compassion. We all have a story. Listen to stories. Learn from our painful past. What will your COVID-19 story be? We have already lost more than 1,200 people in Washington to COVID-19. Take care of each other by wearing cloth face coverings, staying at least six feet away from others, and washing your hands frequently. Photos: Bernedelle at age 106 (2020); Bernedelle at age 5 (1918); Bernedelle's mother, Olive Johnson Please leave condolences or share memories and photos on the Tribute Wall to the left.