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STELLA SANDERS FRESE The family of Stella Sanders Frese Hettinga regrets to announce that she died in her sleep on Thursday morning, August 3, 2006 in her Albuquerque apartment. Stella was born Rosella Marie Sanders, to Beaty Eli Sanders and Virginia Theodosia Fowler Sanders in Burrow, OK, on December 21, 1921. When she was just old enough to talk, she announced that she would henceforth be known as "Stella Belle" and made the name stick; it appears on all identity documents, including an amended birth certificate in 1960. Frail and precocious, she was educated at home until the age of nine, skipped three grades in three days, and went to several West Texas public schools, including Haskell High School. After a Depression forced family relocation to Roswell in her junior year, she graduated from Roswell High School in 1940 in just one year. She regretted her inability to attend college and worked to ensure that her children and theirs all did so. During the war, she was in charge of officers' supplies for bomber crews at Roswell Army Airfield. After the war, she married a bomber pilot she met there, Paul J. Frese of Quincy, IL. They had their only child, a son, Michael Harry Frese, in Quincy in 1947. The family moved back to Roswell in 1953. She and Mr. Frese were divorced in 1957, after which she moved to El Paso, TX and married Ralph Hettinga. In El Paso, she gave birth to her second son, Mr. Hetting's fifth child, Robert Andrew Hettinga, in 1959. Stella and Mr. Hettinga engaged in construction on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; in Las Cruces, NM; Corpus Christi, TX; El Paso again; and finally Anchorage, AK. When she and Mr. Hettinga were divorced in 1973, she moved herself and Robert to Ballwin, MO, to live near her sister, Aileen Grabill and her husband, John. For the rest of her life, Stella continued to care deeply for her former stepchildren, Ralph Martin "Bud" Hettinga, Jr. of Las Cruces, Susan E. Wilson of Burleson, TX, Thomas M. Hettinga (d. 1983) of Las Cruces, and Janet E. Ragsdale, of Lubbock, TX. She began selling real estate, acquiring broker's licenses in Missouri, Texas, and Alaska, as business required, until she retired in 1986 due to her declining health. She spent the last 26 years of her life living near her oldest son, Michael, in Albuquerque. She doted on her grandsons, Matthew and Bradford Frese, read as voraciously as ever, played bridge, did genealogy, and -- a lifelong active Republican everywhere she lived - worked in many capacities for the Bernalillo County and New Mexico Republican Parties. She is survived by her sister, Aileen Grabill, of Timonium, Maryland, the sole survivor of nineteen siblings; her sons, Michael H. Frese, Ph.D, of Corrales, and Robert A Hettinga, BA, of Boston, MA; her daughters-in-law, Sherry D. Frese, Ph.D, of Corrales, and Carol M. Gilbert, Ed.D, of Boston; and, most important to her in her later years, her grandsons, Matthew D. Frese (BS, Applied Math, John Hopkins), of Baltimore, MD, and Bradford C. Frese (BS, Chemistry, Dartmouth, now studying Law at Georgetown University). Her indomitable spirit and love live on in us all. She will be buried Friday, without graveside ceremony, in South Park Cemetery in Roswell, next to her sister and near her parents. Her Funeral Service will be at 10:00 a.m., Thursday, August 10, 2006, at French Mortuary, Wyoming Blvd. Chapel, (7121 Wyoming Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109. (505) 823-9400). French Mortuary 7121 Wyoming Blvd. NE (505) 823-9400
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