Dorsher, Gail J. (nee Anderson) died Friday from dementia, encircled in the loving care of her son, daughter and all of the heroic staff at Christian Community Homes in Hudson, Wis. She was 85 years and one week old; she was not a victim of COVID 19. A single mother of two from age 25, Gail got her family off welfare by earning an RN degree at 36 and serving as a head nurse for about 15 years, initially at Mt. Sinai Hospital and then at the V.A. Hospital in her native Minneapolis. While caring for a veteran, a syringe exploded in her face and left her disabled, in chronic pain the rest of her life. She missed her patients and co workers. "It's not supposed to be fun," she once told her son. "That's why they call it work!" Gail loved her children, her sister, their dogs and her longtime home facing Minnehaha Falls not necessarily in that order. She reveled in walking the dogs, sitting on her deck and playing table games. She knew all the 2 letter Scrabble words and liked to "go low" in Rummy 500. Gail was preceded in death by her parents, H. Clifford and Dorothy (née Winter) Anderson of Minneapolis, and her recently departed younger sister, Barbara Wientjes (Ronald) of Lindstrom. The sisters lived together in south Minneapolis for more than 20 years. Surviving Gail are her son, Michael (and wife, Sharon Kessler), a journalism professor and Fulbright Scholar who lives in Hudson; her daughter, Michelle Wess, who owns a small business in Anoka with her husband, John; granddaughter Danielle Testin (Josh) of Nisswa, Minn.; and great-grandchildren Caidance and Cypress Testin. In accordance with her wishes, Gail will have no burial service. Memorials may be made to Christian Community Homes of Hudson or her great-grandchildren's college savings funds.

Published on May 24, 2020