Nancy Hausermann: “I’ve got to be helping”

Before health issues prevented her from going into stores, Nancy Hausermann was a familiar sight at the entryway to Super 1 Foods in Polson. She would have piles of goodies and usually a young person helping her hold a bake sale.

Hausermann, who died Sept. 27 of lung cancer, leaves behind a legacy of generosity that transcended health issues and adversity.

With a smile on her face and a kind word for everyone, Hausermann was a fundraising staple and kid magnet in this community, always raising money for Thanksgiving baskets, Christmas gifts for kids or food to give away to seniors and veterans.

“It’s just a drive, it’s just, you know, I’ve got to be helping,” Haussermann said in an interview on KPAX in September 2021. She told the reporter that she never wanted another kid to be hungry, as she was as a child.

Hausermann formed Nancy’s Kids, a youth group whose members held toy drives, food drives, countless bake sales and raffles.

“She touched the lives of those kids,” said her daughter, Chris Vanlear. “Mom pretty much grew up with nothing and led a very hard life,” she added. “She got unimaginable joy from helping people, especially children.”

A woman whose faith was strong, Hauserman loved Christmas and wanted to share the magic, especially with children. She also ransacked area thrift stores for baskets and bunnies for Easter … and then there was Halloween.

Nancy’s Kids usually threw a Halloween Haunted House, held for several years at Journeybe. Ghouls and ghosts occupied the pews and witches roamed the building, with Pastor John Payne dressing up as a werewolf one year.

The church office and the hall were niches for scary ghosts, bowls of eyeballs (hard boiled eggs or grapes) and intestines (cold spaghetti), while bloody hands reached from behind curtains, chainsaws revved, and a zombie slept in a coffin. Eerie shrieks, groans, and rattling chains added to the atmosphere.

The entrance fee was reasonable, and the proceeds went to help purchase school supplies or Thanksgiving baskets.

Hausermann had a slew of friends, including local attorney Chuck Wall. When Nancy was throwing her last Halloween bash, he told her he had a hearse.

“Her eyes lit up,” Wall said. When he added there was a coffin in the back, her eyes sparkled even more, and when hold her the hearse was kind of beat up, that only made it better.

“That’ll scare those kids,” she said gleefully.

Wall met Hausermann when he was Lake County Justice of the Peace. He noticed a woman in his courtroom who sat there through the entire three-hour session. When court concluded, she asked if she could talk to him.

Hausermann said Ronan Dodge had a good deal on a van for Nancy’s Kids for $4,000, but she only had $2,000. She and Wall put their heads together and figured out how to raise the other $2,000.

“We’ve been friends ever since,” Wall said.

In an interview on Good Morning America that aired in November 2021, Hausermann said she started her faith-based ministry 25 years ago, and it was based, in part, on her own experience. “I grew up very, very poor and I know what hunger is,” she said. “My goal is to not see other people going hungry.”

That year, she and her cadre of volunteers delivered 84 baskets of turkeys and trimmings for Thanksgiving dinners. At Christmas time, she gave out up to 400 gifts to area children.

“When I was growing up I never had Christmas so it’s so important to my heart that all children have that opportunity,” she said. “Seeing joy on a child’s face means a lot to me.”

One of her volunteers said during the pandemic, people would call Nancy and she would make sure a box of food appeared on their doorstep that day.

“Nancy means so much to our community,” she added. “From the moment she meets you she only sees the best version of you.”

That’s how it was with Hausermann: everyone got to know her and realized she was for real. Her loss leaves a big hole in the crazy quilt that’s our community.