Sonia Ann Nornes

Sonia Ann Nornes was born in Mission Hill, South Dakota on December 9, 1936, to Mark and Alma Nelsen. With her parents and her brother David, they lived the typical Depression era farm life on the banks of the Missouri River. Her grandparents, Torger and Elie Nelsen, had built that farm after immigrating from Norway in the 1860s, building a sod house next to the James River.

Over the course of decades, they built a proper house, barn and outbuildings (including, of course, a two-seater outhouse) on their land. When Torger passed away, her 19-year-old father took over the farm. Sonia grew up there, walking a mile with her brother to Welby Devoe School, a one-room school house where her mother once taught. When her father took a job in the Roosevelt Administration as Director of the Department of Agriculture for the State of South Dakota in 1943, the family moved to the Big City—Huron.

Sonia studied at elementary, middle and high school there. She loved going to the movie house with her brother and checking out books from the nearby Carnegie Library; both movies and books were life-long passions. In 1955, she left home for Concordia College. Her father passed away at the end of her first semester, making the transition to life out-of-the-nest challenging. But after two years in Moorhead, she transferred to the University of Minnesota to complete a three-year nursing BA. There, she met her partner in life, Howard, when she noticed his Concordia graduation ring at the University Lutheran Student House. After a courtship along the Mississippi River they married in Huron in 1958, and lived in the Twin Cities while she finished her nursing degree, With Distinction, in 1959.

Howard was working at a high school in Richfield and Sonia was working as a public health nurse for the city of Minneapolis when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Alma sold the Huron house and joined the young couple in Minneapolis until her death in 1965. Sonia and Howard had their first child Mark Howard in 1961, followed by Paul Nelsen in 1964 and David Onsgaard in 1966. They moved to Purdue University when Howard started graduate school, pausing her nursing to concentrate on raising her three energetic boys and running the new home. Upon Howard's graduation in 1972, the family moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where Sonia spent the rest of her life.

Sonia devoted her life to nurturing other people, starting with her family but extending to friends and gradually to many people she had never before met. In the early 1980s, she worked as a public health nurse before turning to other activities. For example, she worked the hotline at the Fort Collins Community Crisis and Information Center. She swiftly became a Case Consultant responsible for 12 to 15 volunteers. She was active in the election education activities of the League of Women Voters. And, of course, she was active in the church —the center of her social life. As Mark, Paul and David left the nest, Sonia returned to school.

When Howard was on sabbatical in Washington, she took courses at the University of Virginia to pave the way for a return to nursing. Upon their return to Fort Collins she became a nurse at Hospice of Larimer County. At the same time she was a nurse for NE Home Health care, where she was elevated to the role of position of Supervisor. She also served as a counselor at The Women's Center. After David departed for college, Sonia pursued a Masters in Social Work at Colorado State University, graduating in 1990. After graduation, she joined Lutheran Family Services—which was run by her dear friend Sharon Johnson; she was a Group Coordinator and Counselor in the Fostering Family Strengths: Prevention of Child Abuse Program. At Trinity Lutheran Church, she volunteered as a Premarital Counselor. As part of her career at Lutheran Family Services, Sonia and her colleagues developed a curriculum to teach parents how to nurture their children as she did her own. One of her noteworthy projects was co-directing two Telly Award-winning documentaries, Helping Babies Learn and Helping Toddlers Learn. They were broadcast on PBS and hundreds of copies were sold to other parenting programs and new parents. They were even translated into Spanish.

Through the sum of all these activities, it is no exaggeration to say that thousands of people were touched by Sonia's care. In retirement, she designed a lovely new house beneath the foothills of Fort Collins, which she and Howard built in 2006. When they weren't in their beloved home, they were traveling the world. Even in the late stages of her dementia, she embraced life. She laughed, sang, danced—and at 4:30 every afternoon, she enjoyed her happy hour with family and friends.

Sonia Ann Nornes passed from this earth on October 6, 2024. She is survived by her immediate family—Howard, David, Paul (Teresa), Mark— her brother David (Deanne) Nelsen, and grandchildren Katherine (Rendon) Rieth, Laura Nornes, Fumiya Abe-Nornes, India Nornes and Ruby Nornes.

A memorial service and light reception will take place at the family's Trinity Lutheran Church on November 9 at 11:00am. Sonia would welcome all to come to celebrate not just her life, but Life itself. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to Lutheran Family Services in Fort Collins or Project Self-Sufficiency in Loveland.