Laurie Hart, 68

Laurie Hart, 68, of Greenbush passed away peacefully next to her husband Ian on May 11, 2024 at LifeCare Medical Center.

A funeral service for Laurie Hart will take place on May 20, 2024 at Rose Free Lutheran Church in Roseau at 2:00 pm with a visitation an hour prior. Interment will take place at Moe-Rose Cemetery.

Laurie Kim Hart was born on October 27, 1955, to Kennis and Lila (Lorenson) Anderson in Greenbush, MN. She was baptized and confirmed at Bethel Lutheran Church in Greenbush, and attended Greenbush School, graduating in 1973.

After another couple of years in the area working at Greenbush Nursing Home while back at the school getting a chemistry qualification, Laurie finally attained escape velocity, first training as a surgical technician at a Vo-tech in East Grand Forks, MN, and a hospital in Grand Forks, ND, and working as such in Crookston, MN, but then going further afield, to Sacramento, CA, and to help people in a different way. Actually, at first, she worked in a car parts warehouse to support herself but ultimately ended up working for Teen Challenge, the Christian-based residential substance abuse recovery program, all the while attending the (affiliated?) Warehouse Christian Ministries.

However, by now Laurie had met and felt led to join the short-term mission organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM), so (all this interspersed with periods working in Greenbush and later MPLS) off to Tyler, Texas she next went, from where over a two year period she joined teams taking an evangelistic drama Toymaker & Son (in which she was a ‘Cruel Ted’!) up and down the East coast; and going into Mexico, to Guatemala, and to Haiti, often working in orphanages, in which she liked working with the ‘preemies’.

Now, Laurie liked Haiti the most as it seemed closest to her idea of Africa where she had aspired to go ever since she was three, and now YWAM with its African bases offered the opportunity, but to which one? She opted to write to several and go to whichever replied first, and hence in April 1987 she arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, being met at the airport by a member of the office staff who mainly wanted to get back to his beloved bookkeeping but while there made the best of the interruption to go off and hunt down some luggage lost the day before, so fortunately also along was a kind lady who took Laurie under her wing and oriented her. Now, Laurie had come to work in the clinic, but by then they had a greater need for a secretary, so she ended up working in the office along with the aforementioned bookkeeper, and before very long it ‘became apparent they were to be life partners’ (i.e., they fell in love, and have been ever since).

A year later, they left Kenya together, spent a few months in England so Laurie could get to know his family, friends & country, then on to the U.S., getting married on October 1, 1988 at Bethel Lutheran Church in Greenbush. They planned to return to Africa but had been advised to take a year off to establish their marriage, so decided to spend that year in her country, it being harder to reach on future shorter furloughs, and that was 35 years ago! (but seems far less).

So, Laurie came full circle in the end, but her life back here has also been good, supporting friends who did make it back to Africa and other places, being an active member of Rose church for most of that time, still even when ceasing to make it to services meeting with a couple of ladies for prayer until relatively recently, enjoying all the annual ‘girls away’ trips with her mother & sisters (and weekly visits with the nearby ones), travel with her husband including back to their honeymoon cabin for almost every anniversary including their 35th last October, and contented home life including the quieter pursuits such as some needlecraft, reading, and until very recently a variety of mind-stimulating puzzles on her kindle, including a kind of crossword without clues at which she was really quite good.

‘A smashing girl’, as the groom’s father said in his wedding speech, she will be sorely missed.

Laurie is survived by her husband Ian, sisters VerJean (Robert) Streeter of Lino Lakes, MN, and Karalyn Anderson of Greenbush; brothers Jeff (Julie) Anderson of Greenbush, Bruce (Carol) Anderson of Greenbush, and Brad (Lynnette) Anderson of Windom, MN, along with many nieces, nephews, and other relatives.

She was preceded in death by her parents, sisters Terri Lindemoen, Becky Lorenson, and Eleen Barrett, and nephews J.R. and Kennis.

Helgeson Funeral Home