Her father's store, Andersen Hardware and Implements, was built a few years after her parents, Walter F. and Alma Andersen, moved the family from Nebraska in 1919. "My father, who was a contractor, talked it over with my mother, and they thought it was just too cold in Nebraska. So they came down for the W.E. Stewart Land Company land drive, put in land for a home and to open a business, and went back and sold everything in my house in an auction. I remember being really upset as a little girl because I was just 4 years old and had lost my tricycle." By the time she graduated from Weslaco High in 1933, her father had declared bankruptcy due to his business suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. It wasn't until after he re-established the business that he sent her to college. While attending Texas A&I University in Kingsville, she met George P. Slaughter, who was working on an apprenticeship for Southern Pacific at the time, serving as a welder and boilermaker for the train engines. They were married on Nov. 14, 1936. She returned to school later to earn a teaching degree and embarked on a 26-year career in education that included tenures at elementary schools in Brownsville, Weslaco, Kingsville, and Aransas Pass. But they also endured several hardships, including their home being destroyed by Hurricane Celia in 1970. They lived in a HUD trailer for a year while their home was being rebuilt. In 1988, they moved to John Knox Village after having lived in Aransas Pass for more than 30 years, She was preceded in death by her husband George in 1996, and her siblings, sister Erma and brothers Odell and Keith. She is survived by her daughter, Jan Clements, two granddaughters and three great-grandchildren.