Gerald M Sande

Gerald M. Sande was born in 1934 and grew up in Pembina, a small town in the extreme northeast corner of North Dakota, where his father was a U. S. Customs Inspector at the international boundary with Canada. A pleasant childhood filled with good riends and adult role models led to his love of learning in the service of others, and brought him to St. John's Prep School and St. John's University in central Minnesota. Graduate work in theology in Europe prepared him for ordination as a Catholic priest and eight years of service in the Diocese of Fargo in eastern North Dakota.

In 1968 Gerry and Lorraine were married, a relationship that has only grown stronger over the past half-century. Two daughters and two grandchildren are now making professional contributions to society--testimony, perhaps, to a successful family.

Also in 1968, Gerry joined the growing staff of what would become Target Corporation and spent eleven years assisting its legal staff in data collection and systems management. He then moved to a small specialty printing company, where he served as general manager and part owner until his retirement in 1999.

Somewhere along the way, a birthday gift from his daughter was a copy of History of the Red River Valley, a book Gerry had heard about years earlier but had never seen. This awakened old childhood memories about the log cabins and stories about the small town of his youth, the oldest settlement, he remembered, in this part of the world. If one book was good, ten would be better and a small library would be best, the yield of many days spent searching the wonderful world of used book stores for anything that spoke of the fur trade and Pembina's role in that era. Information began to accumulate and needed a place to go, finally settling in a story called The Beaver, The Buffalo, The Border.