Because what we do matters

EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog is very personal. It attempts to explain why my sister, Susanne, and I have created a special charity assortment of chocolates debuting this fall – the Anderson’s Candy Shop Give Back Box. For every one of these special assortments sold we will donate 25% of the proceeds to the Family Health Partnership Clinic of Woodstock, IL. Please read on for more information or visit www.andersonscandyshop.com

I wish I had known about the Family Health Partnership Clinic in 2006. If I had, maybe things would be different.

Six years ago this November, I found out that my mother, Ruth, had breast cancer.

I was 20 years old and home on Thanksgiving Break from Eastern Illinois University. I had come home early intent on surprising everyone. A happy surprise.

Upon sneaking into the house at about 3 a.m., I surprised mom first. She was on her way back to bed from a trip to the bathroom.

What happened next still seems like a dream to me -- unreal.

Even in the dark I could see that she was trying to hide something. And I was horrified when I realized that she was trying to block me from seeing that one of her breasts was triple it’s normal size.

There was a tumor.

She had hidden it well under her everyday clothes but the thin fabric of the nightgowns mom loved to wear could not hide the mass on her chest.

Shock and disbelief hit me first. Then horror, sadness, panic and anger.

Why had she not seen a doctor? How could she have let a likely cancerous growth get so large?

Then there was fear and tears. She might die.

My mother did not have health insurance or a job at that time. She let her condition escalate because she was afraid that if she was diagnosed with cancer before she had health insurance, she would not be able to afford treatment.

My sister, living at home at the time, was 18 years old and struggling to learn what she could to help our mom, but we were limited by our youth and naivety to the intricacies of health care policy and law.

Soon after I discovered mom's tumor, my Dad and his second wife, Tracy, helped my mom get approved for insurance through the State of Illinois. And, eventually, mom underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.

And she beat the cancer. For a while.

Three years later however, on a weekend trip home from my first job out of college, I had to convince mom once again to go to the hospital for treatment.

She had let her state insurance policy lapse because she could not afford to keep up with the payments. She also never got plugged in to a health care facility that helped her stay diligent with followup treatments.

In addition, she fell into a deep depression as one of the side effects of the radiation treatments.

The result -- the cancer was back and it was too late this time.

We learned shortly after mom was admitted to Centegra Hospital - McHenry, that the cancer had spread to her lymphatic system and metastasized her liver.

Five days later she was gone.

Ever since, Susanne and I, although surrounded by many loving and supportive people, have had to struggle with the pain and loss of someone whom we loved so much.

We have also wrestled since then with the thought that something as simple as knowing where clinics existed that helped the uninsured might have altered things; that having better knowledge of how the system works and what resources were available may have changed mom’s decisions and the outcome.

Two years after mom’s death and three years into my career as a journalist at daily newspapers, I thought I had gotten over most of those feelings of grief and regret.

I had written articles about all-consuming house fires, car accidents and other tragedies. But when I stumbled upon an assignment to write a piece about a volunteer at the Family Health Partnership Clinic of Woodstock, Illinois, I found myself suddenly very affected.

I learned about this place -- the clinic -- which provided consultations, medications and treatment to hundreds of McHenry County's uninsured. And I learned about the tireless volunteers there who care for the seemingly unending line of those who come seeking help.

After I interviewed my source,(Mary Lou was her name), I cried.

I cried because I was moved by her generous spirit. I shed tears for the hundreds of others who I imagined might be scared like my mother was. And I cried because I was so happy there were people there to help.

In her time on this earth, my mother taught my sister and I that what you do in this life matters.

And now as we now approach our third holiday season without her, Susanne and I find ourselves in a unique position to do something that we think would make her proud.

As October begins, we are closing in on our first year as full-time employees at the Candy Shop and now have control over several managerial aspects of the business. With that new freedom and power we have decided to create Anderson's first-ever charity-candy box.

Susanne and I have invented the Anderson's Candy Shop Give Back Box, a special chocolate assortment that we are going to sell this winter, in order to raise money for the Family Health Partnership Clinic.

By January, we hope to have raised some money to support the clinic and also hope to have raised awareness in the community to the clinic's cause. We want to help ensure that other families are aware of at least one local option for health care for the uninsured.

For more information about this project you can visit our website at www.andersonscandyshop.com.

Thank you for reading and have a happy and health rest of 2012.

Groundhog Day

EDITOR'S NOTE: This week, fans of Bill Murray and Harold Ramis' 1993 romantic comedy 'Groundhog Day' celebrated 20 years since the movie was filmed. The anniversary was extra special for us because our candy store was featured in the film! The following was published Feb. 3, 2012 in the The Northwest Herald of Crystal Lake, Ill. I'd describe the column (written by myself) as one part reminiscing and one part discovery. Read it and you'll understand :)


RICHMOND – I always get excited when someone brings up Harold Ramis’ 90s classic, “Groundhog Day.”

I love the movie.

It is one of the very first films I ever saw in a theater. Also, Bill Murray’s sardonic portrayal of TV weatherman Phil Conners stuck repeating the same day over and over again is perpetually funny to me.

What really gets me excited, though, is the fact that my family’s business appears in the film.

For about 26 seconds, immediately following the scene in which Conners delivers a ridiculous toast to “World Peace,” and during the scene in which Rita (Andie MacDowell) and Conners talk about white chocolate and the feeling of dejá vú, my family’s business – Anderson’s Candy Shop – is the set. Well, sort of.

You see, Anderson’s Candy Shop is located in Richmond – about 15 miles from Woodstock where, in 1992, crews with Columbia Pictures turned the downtown into a replica of Gobbler’s Knob, Penn., to shoot the film.

The legendary 26 seconds wasn’t actually filmed in our candy shop. The script for “Groundhog Day” called for a good old-fashioned candy shop as the setting for one of the film’s scenes. Since downtown Woodstock did not have a candy store that fit the bill, we were invited to set up a fake shop and be featured in the movie.

I was about 7 years old at the time and completely oblivious to the “big-timers,” as my dad, Leif Anderson, called the people who first asked us to provide props.

All I knew was that my dad took us up to the Woodstock Square one day to show us some fake snow and, more importantly, that my family’s business, my family and in a twice-removed-sort-of-way I myself, were going to be in a film.

I was excited then and I still am now.

Curious to me until recently, however, was the fact that neither my father nor my uncle have ever seemed as excited. Until a few nights ago, when I interviewed them for background on this column, I never understood why.

My uncle, Lars Anderson, called being involved in “Groundhog Day” an “interesting process.”

My dad explained what the family and the business actually had to do.

“We had to decorate an entire store and produce enough candy to set it up as if it were a real operating candy shop,” he said.

“We put up historic photos from our then-74 years in business and had to keep it set up like that for a month while they were shooting various shots,” he continued.

I also learned that our business trained extras to act like real candy shop employees. When filming was over, we did all of the cleanup and had to put the unrented space back into the shape we found it in.

After I further quizzed the patriarchs on their brush with Hollywood, I came to realize why the 26 seconds had been so huge for me and why it was lackluster for them.

I had no expectations for the film, or our part in it.

When I first saw “Groundhog Day” in the theater, I was thrilled to recognize the candy that I loved and to see sepia-toned photos of my grandfather and great-grandfather on the wall of a real scene in a real movie – no matter how brief the scene.

It was such a big deal to me. In fact, I remember sitting in the Genoa Theatre (formerly in Genoa City, Wis.) and watching the movie twice just to get a second glimpse.

For Dad and Lars, though, the 26 seconds was a letdown.

“I have to admit, we were horribly crestfallen to see how little exposure there actually was for us,” Lars said.

“For the amount of work we put in and the expense the filmmakers went to ... we were imagining we would be featured more. But really it was not any different than being silverware on a table in a restaurant in a movie,” he said.

Even though our shop provided props and our name, “Anderson’s Candy Shop,” was actually visible in the film, when the movie first came out, most people looked up Anderson’s candy store in western Pennsylvania, rather than us.

Looking back on the film with fresh eyes, I understand now my dad and uncle’s muted-enthusiasm to our involvement in the movie. And I wonder if other local businesses deal with the same mixed emotions.

However, even after finding all this out, for me, that 26 seconds (and the film in general) is still something to get excited about.

Have a memory you'd like to share? Email Katie at AndersonsCandyShop@gmail.com or leave a comment below.