M. Anita Anderegg

M. Anita Anderegg, daughter of Julius and Margaret (Nelson) Bubolz, passed away Monday, October 20, 2014 from natural causes.

She was born in 1922 at her grandmother’s home in Seymour, Wisconsin, and raised in Hollister (Langlade County) Wisconsin. Her father was a railroad section foreman and dairy farmer and her mother was the village postmaster. A true daughter of the North, she loved to ramble in the woods and fish for trout in the Wolf River near her home. She attended a one-room school in Hollister where her precocity forced the schoolteacher to make her the “assistant teacher” to keep her occupied; from the third grade on, she was in charge of teaching all the younger children to read. She attended high school in White Lake, Wisconsin and graduated at age 15 from Appleton High School. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in education from Oshkosh State Teachers’ College, and began teaching high school in Wausau at age 19, despite being only a year older than her students.

On Christmas Eve 1943, she married her high school sweetheart, Robert Anderegg, on an army base in Texas, with GIs in angel costumes in attendance. After the war, the couple lived in Brown Deer, Wisconsin and had four children there. In 1957, she and her husband moved to Fond du Lac, where Bob took a job in management at Kiekhaefer-Mercury. Shortly after the move, she took in three “new kids,” (the children of Bob’s sister Rose and Carl S Nadler, Jr.) after their parents’ untimely deaths. She and Bob raised the “new kids” as their own, and throughout her life she always endeavored to treat all her kids, old and new, with equal and generous measures of love and discipline.

While in Fond du Lac, she worked as a substitute English and math teacher, and became active in local politics. She was a board member of the Fond du Lac County Taxpayers’ Association, and she served on the Fond du Lac County Board of Supervisors from1972 to 1981. In 1972, she organized a petition for a referendum to change the appointed office of County Administrator to an elective position. That effort was defeated at the polls, and the next day she began organizing a petition drive on the same issue. The next time, the issue was decided in favor of an elected County Executive, and she ran for the position. She won that election and served thee four-year terms as the first elected County Executive in Fond du Lac County from 1981 to 1993. While in office, she worked hard to bring efficiency and transparency to county government. She was especially proud of her efforts to mentor younger women to assume roles in administration and management at a time when there were few women in government positions.

Anita was an avid gardener, and gave gardening advice and plants to friends and neighbors throughout her life. While still County Executive, she proposed and helped design the Fond du Lac County Veterans’ Park, and in retirement she worked many long hours planting and weeding it; she described this as her duty as the daughter, wife, sister and mother of U.S. Army veterans. In later years, she traveled extensively with her husband, and took each of her grandchildren to Hawaii for a week in the year they turned nine (in her words, while they were “still tractable”). She also remained active in local politics as a volunteer long after her retirement as an elected official.

She was predeceased by her husband of 68 years, Robert C. Anderegg, her brother Danford Bubolz and her son-in-law Malcolm Fuller. She is survived by her sister Frances A Bubolz of Madison and her sister-in-law Marge Bubolz, also of Madison; her children, Michael J Anderegg (Cheryl) of Marquette MI; Margaret McNurlan of Stony Brook, NY; Barbara Anderegg (Harry Moen) of Madison; Virginia Mueller (Juergen) of Sun Prairie; Robert J Anderegg (Jennifer Petersson) of Hartland, VT; David Anderegg (Kelley DeLorenzo) of West Stockbridge, MA; and Carl S Nadler III (Judy) of Washington DC; her grandchildren, Megan Anderegg Malone (Ian), Kate Anderegg (Daniel Pascoe), Jessica Rhoades (Chris), Jeremy Garlick, Gemma Gerardi (Michael), Francesca Anderegg (Reinaldo Moya), Peter Anderegg (Leslie), Caspar Anderegg (Madeline Burton), Cotey Anderegg, Benjamin Nadler, and Lauren Nadler (Grey Pierce). She is also survived by seven great-grandchildren, including Athena Juliet Anderegg, born a few hours after Anita’s death on October 20. She is also survived by her loving friends Rhonda Hoffmann, Bonnie Burroughs and Rita Cormack of Fond du Lac.

The family wishes to extend a heartfelt thanks to the staff of Brookridge Heights in Marquette, Michigan, for their loving attention to Anita in her last two years. A memorial service will be held at a future date in Fond du Lac, with burial of her cremains in Rienzi Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Running Start (a non-profit providing support and mentorship for young women in politics) or to the Fond du Lac County Veterans’ Park; contributions may be sent to Uecker-Witt Funeral Home, 524 North Park Avenue, Fond du Lac, WI 54935.