Arlene Helen Sandeen

Mrs. Arlene Sandeen of St. Peter passed away on Wednesday, August 7, 2019, at River’s Edge Hospital in St. Peter.  Visitation will be at the Saint Peter Funeral Home on Sunday, August 11 from 2 until 5 p.m.  The funeral service will be at the Union Presbyterian Church in St. Peter on Monday, August 12, at 11 a.m.

                Arlene Helen Hoffman was born on April 19, 1923.  She was the fifth of six children born to Alfred Hoffman and his wife, Elizabeth (Haslip) Hoffman.  The family lived on a farm in section 22 in Mankato Township that was diagonally across the highway from the District 53 country school.  Upon completion of her classes there, Arlene attended school in Mankato, where she was a graduate in the Class of 1940 from the old Mankato High School that used to stand on the block to the south of the courthouse.

                Arlene was employed at a variety of jobs before accepting a position as a receptionist and bookkeeper for Dr. Harold Carlson, a Mankato optician and optometrist at 130 East Jackson Street.  She and a friend had been ready to travel to Washington, D. C. to help to fill the demand for workers there soon after World War Two began.  Arlene cancelled the planned trip, and spent five years working for Dr. Carlson.

                A date with a young man from St. Peter that included another couple resulted in a friendship that lasted through the two and one-half years that the young man spent in the army during the war.  James Sandeen returned from Europe in December of 1945 after his discharge from the military.  Arlene and James were married at the First Baptist Church in Mankato on June 22, 1947.

                The couple lived in St. Peter in an apartment upstairs at 220 North Washington Avenue before purchasing property and constructing a house at 418 North Washington Avenue.  In 1952, the couple and their young son moved into the basement of the new house that was being constructed at 517 North Washington Avenue.  In January of this year Arlene moved to Ecumen Prairie Hill in St. Peter.

                Arlene was active in a number of the organizations in which James was involved, especially the Minnesota organizations associated with his job as the Superintendent of Utilities in St. Peter.  She attended a number of utility conventions in Minnesota and several national conventions in various cities across the United States.

                The family traveled extensively over the years.  Arlene’s travels took her to most of the 50 states and to 19 foreign countries, including much of western Europe, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.  She and her son attended a family reunion in Australia, where they met several hundred of their cousins, who shared an ancestral link that went back to Northern Ireland in the early 1800s.

                Arlene is survived by her children, Robert of St. Peter and Susan (Mrs. Anthony Bogenschutz) of Mankato, as well as three grandchildren, Jennifer, Brett, and Kimberly (Mrs. Josh Fischer) and two great-grandchildren, Gwenyth and Charlotte.  She is also survived by one sister, Deloris (Mrs. Richard Miller) of Mankato. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, and two brothers and two sisters.