Dick Anderson remembered for tender heart shared with others

Richard “Dick” Anderson spent his career dealing with death, but his family remembers most his knack for celebrating life.

Anderson worked as a funeral director for Hazen and Jaeger Funeral Home since the mid-1960s at both its Spokane Valley and Spokane locations. Before entering the field, Anderson had to cope with his own losses: his mother died when he was 11 and his first child died at 4. Instead of becoming bitter, he learned to empathize with people and shared his tender heart with those who needed his support, his family and a close friend said.

Still, the gravity of his job weighed on him.

“I think it was a hard business for Dad, but I think he was very good at what he did because he had loss in his life and could relate to that,” daughter Erika Anderson said.

After battling illness for several years, Anderson died Nov. 27 at age 74.

Anderson was born in Spokane in 1930 to Gertrude (Morris) Anderson and Richard H. Anderson. He was their only child.

Gertrude became ill when Dick Anderson was young, so his father had him spend a lot of time with family friends. After she died, Dick’s interaction with other families grew and he formed lifelong bonds.

“Because he lived with other families, it probably seemed to him like he had siblings,” Erika said.

Eventually, Anderson’s father remarried a woman named Elizabeth. Anderson adored his stepmother, who instilled in him a love of nature, hiking and Glacier National Park.

Anderson graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in 1948 and moved to New York City to attend Columbia University. He didn’t finish, though, and joined the U.S. Army. Anderson was stationed in Germany, but instead of spending his time with fellow soldiers he often ventured off the base.

“He wanted to get to know the German people,” Erika said. “They’d practice English on him and he’d speak German with them.”

It was there Anderson formed another lifelong friendship with a family. His relationship with Max Brandl would continue for decades, evolving as the two raised children who spent time in each other’s homes.

Anderson moved back to Spokane after serving in the military and took a job with the J.C. Penney Co. Meanwhile, a family friend named Robin Rymond came to town from New York.

Rymond, the daughter of well-known businesswoman Helen Hazen Rymond, was a teacher at a school for the blind back east. Although she and Anderson had known each other for years, their connection on this visit took a different turn.

“This was not a new person in our lives at all, but then this wonderful romance blossomed,” Robin’s sister Ann Rymond Tuling said.

Rymond Tuling recalled excitedly changing her dress four times the night of her sister’s first date with Anderson “because I was going to open the door,” she said.

Anderson and Rymond married in 1958 and quickly started a family. Their first daughter, Ann Elizabeth, was born with severe disabilities. Ann Elizabeth was deaf and blind, and it was considered an incredible feat when she learned to sit up on her own. Within four years, though, the little girl died.

The Andersons went on to have four more children: Molly, Erika and twins John and Richard. Meanwhile, Dick Anderson faced a decision at work. If he wanted to move up with Penneys, he would have to move his family from time to time. Instead, he chose to study mortuary science and join his wife’s family’s company, Hazen and Jaeger.

When the children were young, the family lived in a brick house behind the funeral home’s Monroe Street location. But Anderson wanted a quieter pace, so the family moved to the Spokane Valley in 1967 to a house where Robin Anderson still lives.

Anderson moved through the ranks at Hazen and Jaeger and became a funeral director. When families couldn’t afford an elaborate funeral, Anderson always found a way to honor the deceased person’s life in a special way, Erika said.

“Dad was very much into having some kind of ceremony,” she said. “But he could care less if it was at the funeral home or if there were six limousines.”

Anderson had an especially soft spot in his heart for older women who lost their husbands, she said.

“So Dad would invite them to Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Erika said. “We had a lot of extra grandmas in our lives.”

Erika’s partner, Diane White, said the Anderson family has a habit of taking people in and then treating them like a blood relation.

“They have all these aunts and uncles, but nobody’s really related,” White said.

The funeral business affected the Anderson children, too. From an early age, they learned that the home telephone wasn’t a toy.

“We learned good phone etiquette from the beginning because you never knew who was on the other end,” Erika said. “Dad might have been waiting for a call because he knew someone was sick. … It taught us respect for people and their feelings.”

When Anderson needed to escape the stress of his job, he’d listen to classical music, garden or read history books. He was an active member of Opportunity Christian Church and directed the choir there for years.

Due to the nature of his work and his personal experiences, Anderson knew that life could be taken away in an instant. To make the most of it, he and his wife traveled overseas, even when their children were still at home. Anderson wouldn’t hit the typical tourist spots, though. He’d read the history of an area before going and would find attractions only the locals knew. Together, the family regularly visited Glacier and the Oregon Coast.

Anderson had a humorous side, too.

“I’ve found if you don’t have a sense of humor (in the funeral business), you couldn’t do what you do,” said Rymond Tuling, who works for Hazen and Jaeger.

Anderson’s pastor, Homer Todd, recalled a time he and Anderson were traveling to Creston, Wash., for a burial at a family gravesite in the wheat fields. The men stopped for lunch at Deb’s Cafe, but before they could park the hearse, they had to circle the parking lot a few times. (Anderson needed to find a spot in view of his seat inside so he could keep an eye on the casket while they ate.)

By the time they walked in – the only ones in the joint wearing suits – everyone had spotted the hearse and its cargo, Todd said. The waitress came to take their orders, and both men chose steak. She asked Anderson how he’d like his cooked and he replied, “Blood rare. It doesn’t even have to be warmed clear through.”

“The place emptied out,” Todd recalled, laughing.

And when Anderson hosted the annual church choir Christmas party, he knew that some of his guests would be opposed to drinking alcohol, Todd said. But as a good Scandinavian, Anderson had to offer at least a few libations, Todd said. So near the coffee, bowls were labeled “essence of coffee,” “essence of mint” and “essence of chocolate.” Those who got the joke spiked their drinks with Kahlua, peppermint Schnapps and other types of liqueurs.

Anderson’s quieter moments often revolved around music. Even when there were few words he could speak and dementia had set in, music brought him comfort. Near the end of his life, his family played a piece and asked Anderson who it was.

“Vivaldi,” he correctly, although weakly, replied.

In earlier days, Todd knew where to find Anderson when he stopped in Hazen and Jaeger’s Valley home and his friend wasn’t behind his desk.

Undoubtedly, Anderson would be seated at the home’s large organ “playing something wonderful,” Todd said.

“He was tenderhearted and being in the funeral business was difficult in that regard,” he said. “(Playing the organ) was some release from who he was and what he was. He freed his spirit by playing.”